fairly easy conscience, thanks again to you!"

When I reached my room that ev--morning, I was shocked and startled to
find the hour hand of my watch pointing steadily to two A.M. I rubbed
my eyes. Impossible! I held the watch to my ear. It beat rhythmically. I
shook my head. Then, as I sat down in a comfortable arm-chair, I held a
long debate with myself as to whether it was my night prayers or my
morning prayers I should say. I compromised with my conscience, and said
them both together under one formula. But when I lay down to rest, but
not to sleep, the wheels began to revolve rapidly. I thought of a
hundred brilliant things which I could have said at the dinner table,
but didn't. Such coruscations of wit, such splendid periods, were never
heard before. Then my conscience began to trouble me. Two A.M.!
two A.M.! two A.M.! I tried back through all my philosophers for an
apology. Horace, my old friend, came back from the shades of Orcus.

"Dulce est desipere in loco,"

said he. Thank you, Flaccus! You were always ready:--

"Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,"

he cried, as he vanished into the shades. Then came Ovid,
laurel-crowned, and began to sing:--

"Somne, quies rerum, placidissime somne deorum!"

But I dismissed him promptly. Then Seneca hobbled in, old usurer as he
was, and said:--

"Commodis omnium laeteris, movearis incommodis."

"Good man!" I cried; "that's just me!"

Then came dear, gentle St. Paul, with the look on his face as when he
pleaded for the slave:--

"Rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep!"

Lastly, came my own Kempensis, who shook his head gravely at me, and
said:--

"A merry evening makes a sad morning!"

I like A Kempis; but indeed, and indeed, and indeed again, Thomas, you
are sometimes a little too personal in your remarks.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: A half-idiot.]

CHAPTER XXXI

FAREWELL

Thomas A Kempis was right in saying that next morning would be a sad
one--not on account of previous merriment; but, as I drove home alone,
the separation from Father Letheby affected me keenly. He had, to use a
homely phrase, grown into my heart. Analyzing my own feelings, as I
jogged along the country road, I found that it was not his attractive
and polished manners, nor his splendid abilities, nor his sociability
that had impressed me, but his open, manly character, forever bending to
the weak, and scorning everything dishon