fastin', there's no request ye'll ax from heaven,
good, bad, or indifferent, but ye'll get. And now do you begrudge
givin'me what I got?" "Not a bit," said I, "and I'll certainly look
for the book." "No, no, the darlin' fine young man," soliloquizing
aloud--"Well and well did I know you wouldn't, nor another along wid
it--sensible and learned as ye are, to know the blessed worth of what
ye got for it; not makin', at the same time, any comparishment at all at
all atween it and the dirty thrash of riches of this earth, that every
wan has their heart fixed upon--exceptin' them that the Lord gives the
larnin' an' the edication to, to know betther."

* There is such a prayer, and I have often seen it in
Catholic Prayer-books.

Oh, flattery! flattery! and a touch of hypocrisy on my part! Between ye,
did ye make another lodgment on my purse, which was instantly lightened
by an additional bank token, value tenpence, handed over to this
sugar-tongued old knave. When he Pocketed this, he shook me cordially
by the band, bidding me "not to forgit the Thirty Days' Prayer, at any
rate." He then glided off with his small, sallow face, stuck between his
little shrugged shoulders, fingering his beads, and praying audibly with
great apparent fervor, whilst his little keen eye was reconnoitering for
another pigeon. In the course of a few minutes, I saw him lead a large,
soft, warm-looking, countryman, over to a remote corner, and enter into
an earnest conversation with him, which, I could perceive, ended by
their both kneeling down, I suppose, to swap a prayer; and I have no
doubt but he lightened the honest countryman's purse, as well as mine.

On the third day I was determined, if possible, to leave it early; so
I performed my third and last station round the chapel and the beds,
reduced to such a state of weakness and hunger, that the coats of my
stomach must have been rubbing against each other; my feet were quite
shapeless. I therefore made the shortest circuit and the longest strides
possible, until I finished it.

I witnessed this day, immediately before my departure from this gloomy
and truly purgatorial settlement, a scene of some interest. A priest was
standing before the door of the dwelling-house, giving tickets to such
as were about to confess, this being a necessary point. When he had
despatched them all, I saw an old man and his son approach him, the man
seemingly sixty, the boy about fourteen. They had a look