must be still pondering over his papers at the "Plough."

How beautiful was the day! How blue the sky! How bright the earth! How
joyous the air--so sweet and so full of song-birds!

I remember that I thought life had been so good to me that I ought to be
good to everybody else--especially to my father, from whom it seemed
wrong for a daughter to be estranged, whatever he was and whatever he
had done to her.

So I turned my face towards my poor grandmother's restored cottage on
the curragh, fully determined to be reconciled to my father; and I only
slackened my steps and gave up my purpose when I began to think of Nessy
MacLeod and how difficult (perhaps impossible) it might be to reach him.

Even then I faced about for a moment to the Big House with some vain
idea of making peace with Aunt Bridget and then slipping upstairs to my
mother's room--having such a sense of joyous purity that I wished to
breathe the sacred air my blessed saint had lived in.

But the end of it all was that I found myself on the steps of the
Presbytery, feeling breathlessly happy, and telling myself, with a
little access of pride in my own gratitude, that it was only right and
proper that I should bring my happiness where I had so often brought my
sorrow--to the dear priest who had been my friend since the day of my
birth and my darling mother's friend before.

Poor old Father Dan! How good I was going to be to him!

ONE HUNDRED AND TENTH CHAPTER

A few minutes afterwards I was tripping upstairs (love and hope work
wonderful miracles!) behind the Father's Irish housekeeper, Mrs.
Cassidy, who was telling me how well I was looking ("smart and well
extraordinary"), asking if it "was on my two feet I had walked all the
way," and denouncing the "omathauns" who had been "after telling her
there wasn't the width of a wall itself betune me and the churchyard."

I found Father Dan in his cosy study lined with books; and being so much
wrapped up in my own impetuous happiness I did not see at first that he
was confused and nervous, or remember until next day that, though (at
the sound of my voice from the landing) he cried "Come in, my child,
come in," he was standing with his back to the door as I
entered--hiding something (it must have been a newspaper) under the
loose seat of his easy-chair.

"Father," I said, "have you heard the news?"

"The news. . . ."

"I mean the news in the newspaper."

"Ah, the news in the newspaper."

"