aced my hands on my knees, thinking that
this was the correct thing; but it struck me immediately that this was
the attitude at High Mass, and I gave it up as out of place. Then I
assumed an air of frigid composure, and toyed with my watch-chain. But a
little girl screwed her eyes into me, and said, evidently, in her mind:
"That old gentleman is a fidget." Then I leaned back gracefully, but
something whispered: "That's all right at home, Father Dan, but please
remember that the _convenances_ of society require a different posture;"
and I sat bolt upright in a moment. My eye caught in a blissful moment
my new handsome umbrella that lay against my chair. I took it up and
leaned with dignity upon it; but that aforesaid little girl looked at
me, and looked at her mamma, and said--I know she said in her own
mind--"That old gentleman thinks it is going to rain, and he wants to
open his umbrella. Mamma, tell him that there is no danger of rain
here." I put down my umbrella. Then Miss Campion--God bless her! she
always comes to my relief--tore her little fingers along the keys in a
grand finale, and then tripped over to her old pastor, and said
gayly:--

"Hurrah! Now, Father Dan, for the grand speech. Won't you astonish these
heretics?"

I believe I did astonish them. For, after a few preliminaries, I settled
down coolly into a quiet, deliberate talk; and I saw by degrees the
stony stare melt away into sunny smiles, and the sunny smiles broadened
into genteel laughter, and there was great clapping of hands, and
suppressed cheers, and altogether I felt that I held them all in the
palms of my hands. But that wicked little girl in the front seats held
out a long time. She did not know whether to laugh or to cry. She
blinked her eyes at me, as if to be sure it was not a spectral vision;
then looked dreadfully alarmed; then consulted her mother's face, now
wreathed in smiles; and then, when her brother was falling off the seat
laughing, and poking her with his stick, she condescended to relax her
awful stare, to smile, to look surprised at herself for smiling--at
last, to laugh. I knew then I had the victory, and I sang, _lo
Triumphe!_ in my own mind.

It is curious and interesting to notice how thoroughly these Protestant
folk warm to a priest the moment they discover he is not quite an ogre.
All these great people gathered round me; they were so delighted, etc.

"What's your name, my dear?" I said to the wicked little girl.