uthful of the water, each from the other's hand.

Dr. Mangan would probably have said that it was all children's
nonsense, and that it was easier to break a promise than to keep it,
but it may be asserted with tolerable certainty that he would not have
been pleased.

He was a strong and able driver, and his big car whirled up Father
Greer's neat and narrow drive, holding undeviatingly the crown of the
high-cambered track, and stopped dead at the front door of the
Parochial House.

That Spirit of the Nation to whom allusion has occasionally been made
in these pages, was by now well accustomed to the discouragement that
she had ever received from the two young lovers whose betrothal she
had been powerless to forbid. She had fled from the benign fairy
influences of the Tober an Sidhe; but now, full of hope, she was
hovering with wide-spread wings over the Parochial House, and, as its
door was opened by Father Greer's elderly and ugly housekeeper, the
Spirit folded her wings and slipped past her, as by a familiar path,
into the priest's sitting-room.

Father Greer was "inside," the elderly and ugly housekeeper said;
"would the Doctor sit in the parlour a minute and he'd come down?"

The Doctor "sat" as requested, in the parlour, noting, as he had often
noted before, its arid asceticism, wondering how any man could stand
the life of a priest, respecting the power that could enable a man to
dispense with all the things that, in his opinion--which, by the way,
he pronounced "oping-en"--made life worth living.

Father Greer came imperceptibly into the room while the Doctor was
still pondering upon the hardness of the black horsehair-covered
armchair in which he was seated.

"Why, Doctor, this is an unexpected pleasure! I heard you were away,"
the priest said, laying a limp hand in the Doctor's big fist.

"So I was too. I was summoned to a consultation. That's what I'm come
to you about, Father. It's old Prendergast. I'm thinking he won't last
much longer."

"D'ye mean Daniel? The Member?"

"I do."

Father Greer took his thin nose, with the nostrils edged with red,
between his finger and thumb, and pinched it slowly downwards several
times.

"Well, what then?" he said at length.

"That's the point," said the Big Doctor, looking at the priest's pale
and bumpy forehead, and trying in vain to catch his eye. "You know
that young Coppinger's name was sent up by our local Committee four
years ago, and the Party appro