is mouth about it. It
must be bad if he is afraid to let me know. I am going to take him to
the priest tonight and find out all about it, and if he had a hand in
it--well, he'll wish he hadn't."

Mrs. Mulvy was too confused to speak. She had wondered why Father Boone
was so stern when he addressed Frank as "sir." Also she had wondered at
Frank's intense emotion on that occasion. "So it was really serious,"
she reflected. "And gossip is getting Frank all mixed up with it!"

Mrs. Duffy continued hesitatingly, "I thought I'd come over to see you
first, Mrs. Mulvy, because they all say that Frank is the only one who
owned up to knowing anything about it."

Mrs. Mulvy caught her breath. However, she answered, composedly enough,
"I should be sorry to know that my boy was really in such awful
mischief, but if he was, I am proud that he owned up to it. It is
boy-like to get into a scrape, but it is very noble to stand up and
admit it."

"I feel that way myself, Mrs. Mulvy. If George was in it, he will have
to own up to it, but I am sorry that he did not do so of his own
accord. George is a good boy, though, I never knew him to do anything
that I was ashamed of before," said Mrs. Duffy wistfully, as she took
her leave. Mrs. Mulvy almost collapsed as she sank into a chair.

For a few moments she was in a state of distraction. At length she
sighed, "Poor Frank!" After a while, she arose and went to a little
shrine of the Blessed Virgin which she called her oratory. Here it was
that the whole family knelt every night to say the rosary together. Here
it was that each one said morning prayers before leaving the house for
the day's occupations. She had consecrated all her children to the
Blessed Mother, and begged her powerful protection for them. The Mother
of God had been a good Mother to her devoted children, and so far Mrs.
Mulvy had realized that devotion to Christ's Mother was one of the
greatest safeguards of virtue. She knelt before the image of the Blessed
Mother and prayed, "Mother of God, to whose care I have entrusted the
little ones He has given me, be more than ever a Mother to my children
now. Especially take under thy protection my good boy Frank. Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.
Amen."

When she arose she had decided to make no inquiries of Father Boone, nor
would she have any misgivings about her boy. She would trust him.

(II)

On his way to school the same