nce. She herself was not so much to
the priest's taste. He was celibate by nature as well as by
profession. Women were antagonistic to him, and Mrs. Mangan, godly
matron though she was, seemed to him to symbolize a very different
ordering of life to that which he approved; but the Big Doctor was an
asset of the Church who must be simpered upon, and for whose sake a
little social boredom must be unrepiningly endured. He was an older
man, by a good many years, than the Doctor, and was nearer sixty than
fifty, but his figure was slight and active, and his scant hair was
dark and silky, though there was a light dust of grey in it over the
ears, which were thin and outstanding, and shared with his nostrils
and eyelids the tinge of red that was denied to the rest of his face.
He had the wide, brains-carrying forehead of a fox, as well as a fox's
narrow jaw, but his eyes were small and black, and as quick as a
bird's.

Barty and Tishy, who were not agreed in many things, were agreed in
being afraid of him. They sat in perfect silence, while their mother
occupied herself with directions to Hannah, who hovered,
indeterminately, near the door, and their father discoursed the
visitor. Father Greer was something of a traveller, and he was now
giving an instructive account of a recent visit to Switzerland, and of
the "winter sports" that had occupied the energies of all in the hotel
save himself.

"I found the air as bracing and as serviceable to me as you had led me
to expect," he said to his host, "but the sports seemed to me to make
a toil of pleasure, and the dancing that went on every night--'twas
impossible to sleep! Well! Youthful frivolity, I suppose, must be
condoned, but I may say I was greatly annoyed at an incident that
occurred at a neighbouring hotel. Mostly English, the visitors were,
and they held a Protestant service on Sunday in the saller-mongy."

Barty looked secretly at his sister. His expression said: "And why
shouldn't they?"

Father Greer ignored the look, and continued his recital: "As was
quite right and proper for them to do."

There was a blink of the black eyes, and Barty recognised that he had
not been unobserved.

"There was what is called a Reading-party of young min, with a tutor,
at the hotel," went on the priest. "Protestants they were--so far as
they had any religion--but only wun of them attended that service. It
was said he was the wun and only person able to play the piano in the
hotel