only t' hear what you said was so awful fine!"

"Ye're excused, scout dear," declared the priest. "Shure, it's me that's
glad I can bring a bit o' good news along with the sad--which is the way
life goes, bein' more or less like bacon, the lean betwixt the fat. And
now I'll go on with the story o' the young man and his wife, and----"

"There's a lady in the story?" asked Cis.

"A dear lady," answered the Father. "Young and slim, she was--scarce
more than a girl. With brown hair, I'm told, though I'm afraid I can't
furnish ye much more o' a description, and I'm sad t' say I've got no
photograph."

"Guess I won't be able t' see her face the way I do his," said Johnnie.

"She must've been very sweet-lookin' in the face," declared Father Pat.
"And bein' as good as she was good-lookin', 'tis not hard t' understand
why he loved her the way he did. And that he did love her, far above
annything else in the world, ye'll understand when ye've heard it all.
So think o' her as beautiful, lad dear, and as leanin' on him always,
and believin' in what he said, and trustin'. Also, she loved him in the
same way that he loved her, and we'll let that comfort us hereafter
whenever we talk about them--the strong, clean, fine, young husband, and
the bit o' a wife.

"Well, it was Spring, and they, havin' been kept in all winter, had a
mind one day t' visit the Falls. That same day was lovely, they tell me,
sunny and crisp. And she wore a long, brown coat over her neat dress,
and a scarf of silk veilin' about her throat. And he wore his overcoat,
there bein' some snap in the air.

"Quite a lot o' folks was goin' out upon the ice below the Falls, for
the thawin' and the breakin' up was not goin' forward too much--they
thought--and a grand view was t' be had o' the monster frozen floor, and
the icicles high as a house. So this gentleman and his wife----"

"My father and mother!" cried Johnnie. "Oh, Father Pat, y're goin' t'
tell me how they both got drownded!"

"Now! now! now!" comforted One-Eye, with a pat or two on a shoulder. "Y'
want t' know, don't y'? Aw, sonny, it'll make y' proud!"

Johnnie could only nod. The Father went on: "They went out upon the ice
with all the others, and stood gazin' up at the beautiful sight, and
talkin', I'll venture t' say, about how wonderful it was, and sayin'
that some day they'd bring the boy t' see it."

"Me,"--and Johnnie drew closer to One-Eye.

"Only a bit o' a baby, ye was, lad dear, safe