n't Sunday?"

"No, miss. It's a saint's day--may they be good to us!" crossing
herself. "It's different with you, miss, you see; but we poor folks, we
must say our prayers when we can, or the Virgin will dhrop us out of her
mind."

"Is your chapel pretty?" asks Monica, who has now been a week in the
country, and through very weariness feels a mad desire to talk to
somebody or anybody.

"Faix, it's lovely, miss, since Father Jerry took it in hand! There's
the finest pictures ye ever saw on the walls, an' an altar it 'ud do ye
good to look at."

"Would it? Then I'll go some day to see it," says Monica, smiling, not
knowing that her aunts would as soon let her enter a pandemonium as a
Roman Catholic chapel.

Dear old ladies! frightened by shadows, they have been bred in the
belief that the Evil One dwells beneath the shade of the Romish Church,
and will therefore surely die in it.

"Do, then, agra!" said Mrs. Reilly, who has, of course, like all the
other servants, gone down before Monica: "it's proud we'd be to see ye
there."

There is no thought of conversion in the woman's mind, you must
remember,--merely a hospitable desire to let her know she will be
welcome anywhere.

"By the same token, Miss Monica," says she, "there's something I was
near forgettin' to tell ye."

"Yes!" says Monica.

"Ye're goin' to have me uncle's wife's niece for yer own maid, miss."

"Am I? I'm glad of that," says Monica, with a native courtesy. "Is
she"--with some hesitation and a faint blush--"is she pretty, Reilly?"

"She's the purtiest girl ye ever set eyes on," says Mrs. Reilly, with
enthusiasm.

"I'm glad of _that_; I can't bear ugly people," says Monica.

"Faix, then, there's a bad time before ye wid the ould ladies," mutters
Mrs. Reilly, _sotto voce_, gathering up her cloak and stepping onwards.
She is a remarkably handsome woman herself, and so may safely deplore
the want of beauty in her betters.

Monica, turning aside, steps on a high bank and looks down towards the
village. Through the trees she can see the spire of the old cathedral
rising heavenwards. Though Rossmoyne is but a village, it still can
boast its cathedral, an ancient edifice, uncouth and unlovely, but yet
one of the oldest places of worship in Ireland.

Most of my readers would no doubt laugh it to scorn, but we who belong
to it reverence it, and point out with pride to passers by the few
quaint marks and tokens that link it to a bygone age.

Th