fer with Father Gleeson. He would suggest the necessary
details."

Thus did he go, smiling and occasionally laughing to himself as some
particularly amusing aspect of that which he was considering struck him.
So pleasant was his face that a man whom he met paused to ask the
direction to a certain street that he well knew. When Father O'Connor
had answered his question, the man asked him:

"Are you a Roman Catholic priest?"

"I am," Desmond answered.

"You'll excuse me stopping you, sir, but you looked so happy and
pleasant that I thought I would like to speak to you. You remind me of a
young fellow I once met some years ago--Desmond O'Connor."

Father O'Connor laughed aloud at the remark.

"Supposing I were to tell you I was he, would you believe me?" he
asked.

The stranger shook his head emphatically.

"No, sir, I would not believe it, even from you. I had an argument with
young O'Connor, half-fun and half-earnest. He was an Agnostic, while I
profess to be a Christian of no denomination--just a Christian. You are
not he."

"I am Desmond O'Connor, and your name, if my memory is correct, is
Laceby, a reporter for the 'News.' If you care to have a chat with me,
you will find me at St. Carthage's Presbytery, in Nixon Street."

"But how did you happen----," Laceby began.

"To change my views? A long story, which I will tell you if you call.
You must excuse me at present. I have to attend a sick call at St.
Luke's Hospital."

They shook hands, and bade one another good-night. Laceby stood watching
Father O'Connor until he had disappeared round a corner.

"A strange army, the priesthood," he said to himself. "Every race and
every rank of life--men who have always had a creed, and men who have
had none. Soldiers, sailors, men from trades and professions, drawn to
the Standard by an irresistible impulse that they term a vocation--but
fine fellows, every one of them."

All the world knows St. Luke's Hospital, its Mother Superioress, and the
devoted nuns who labour for the sick poor. Within the wards many a great
healer has served an apprenticeship, and many a sorely-diseased man or
woman has been snatched from death. There is no charitable institution
in which the Catholics of Australia have more reason to take a
legitimate pride. Standing in Burgoyne-avenue, its brick walls tower
towards the sky, one storey above another, while beside it the small and
modest building, now the convent, remains to speak of smal