to eternity without repenting for their transgressions, and
making their peace with God;" and as he concluded, Corbet found that the
good pastor's eye was seriously and solemnly fixed upon him.

"Indeed--it's all true, your reverence--it'a all true," he replied.

"Now, Anthony," continued the priest, "I have something very important
to spake to you about; something that will be for your own benefit,
not only in this world, but in that awful one which is to come, and for
which we ought to prepare ourselves sincerely and earnestly. Have you
any objection that your wife should be present, or shall we go upstairs
and talk it over there?"

"I have every objection," replied Corbet; "something she does know,
but--"

"O thank goodness," replied the old woman, very naturally offended at
being kept out of the secret, "I'm not in all your saicrets, nor I don't
wish to know them, I'm sure. I believe you find some of them a heavy
burden; at any rate."

"Come, then," said the priest, "put on your hat and take a walk with me
as far as the Brazen Head inn, where I'm stopping. We can have a private
room there, where there will be no one to interrupt us."

"Would it be the same thing to you, sir, if I'd call on you there about
this time to-morrow?"

"What objection have you to come now?" asked the priest. "Never put
off till tomorrow what can be done to-day, is a good old proverb, and
applies to things of weightier importance than belong to this world."

"Why, then, it's a little business of a very particular nature that I
have to attend to; and yet I don't know," he added, "maybe I'll be
a betther match for them afther seeing you. In the mane time," he
proceeded, addressing his wife, "if they should come here to look for
me, don't say where I'm gone, nor, above all things, who I'm with. Mark
that now; and tell Charley, or Ginty, whichever o' them comes, that it
must be put off till to-morrow--do you mind, now?"

She merely nodded her head, by way of attention.

"Ay," he replied, with a sardonic grin, "you'll be alive, as you were a
while ago, I suppose."

They then proceeded on their way to the Brazen Head, which they reached
without any conversation worth recording.

"Now, Anthony," began the priest, after they had seated themselves
comfortably in a private room, "will you answer me truly why you refused
seeing me? why you hid or absconded whenever I went to your house for
the last week?"

"Bekaise I did not wish to see