a few steps
away, was looking at an image of Saint Joseph.

The salesman left the servant-girl to her hesitating choice, and turned
to Mr. Martin.

"What have you," asked Mr. Martin, with a slightly conscious tone, "upon
the life of Saint Patrick?"

The priest turned and looked; but the salesman, with an unmoved
countenance, went to the shelves and selected two volumes and laid
them in silence on the counter. One was the "Life and Legends of Saint
Patrick" with a picture in gilt of Brian Boru on the cover. The other
was "Saint Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland," by William Bullen Morris,
Priest of the Oratory. They were both green-covered.

Early in the evening Mr. Martin settled down by his study fire to his
new purchases. First he took up the "Life and Legends." He read the
saint's own Confession, and the Letter to Co-roticus, and looked through
the translation of the Tripartite Life, with its queer mixture of Latin
and English: "Prima feria venit Patricius ad Talleriam, where the regal
assembly was, to Cairpre, the son of Niall." "Interrogat autem Patricius
qua causa venit Conall, and Conall related the reason to Patrick."

He glanced over the miracles and wonders of which this book was full.
But before very long he laid it aside and took up the Life by William
Bullen Morris, Priest of the Oratory, and decided that he must depend
upon that for his preparation.

It was late at night. It was full time to stop reading; but it laid
strong hold of his imagination,--this strange, intense, and humorous
figure, looming up all new to him from the mists of the past. He read
the book to the end; he read how the good Saint Bridget foretold the
apostle's death; how two provinces contended for his remains, and how a
light shone over his burial-place after he was laid to rest.

It was very late when Mr. Martin finished the book and laid it down.

Thus it happens that the Rev. Dr. Parsons and the Rev. Mr. Martin are
both preparing themselves at the same time on the life of Saint Patrick,
from this one brief book by William Bullen Morris, Priest of the
Oratory.

IV.

Saint Patrick's Day has come and is now fast waning. The sun has sunk
behind the chimney-stack of the New Albion dance-hall; the street lamps
are lighted and are faintly contending against the dull glow of the late
afternoon.

There is a lull between day and evening. All day there has been a stir
in the city. There has been a procession in green sashes,