o like to do them, just because he knew that they
were wrong. When he was a baby he was more trouble than twins, and bad
twins at that. He cried all the time, except when he was eating or
sleeping, and he slept only a little of the time and ate a great deal
of it. He always seemed to be just about so sick, but it never hurt
his appetite and he never got any sicker. After a while Ellen got used
to his being sick, and she always said that he was delicate, poor
child, and that was why he was so cross and so much trouble.

"And is that why he eats so much?" Mrs. O'Brien would ask.

"I dunno about that," Ellen would answer; "I think it's the kind of
sickness that's on him that makes him eat so much."

"More likely it's eating so much that gives him the kind of sickness
that's on him," Mrs. O'Brien would say. "But I tell you again, it's no
sickness at all he has. He's just one of the Good People, and you
could be rid of him and have your own child back any time you would do
any of the things I would tell you."

But not a word of this would Ellen ever heed. Terence was her own
child, and he might be a bit troublesome, as any child might, but he
was not really bad at all, and it was Kathleen, that was always so
good, the Lord knew why, that made Mrs. O'Brien think that every child
ought to be that way. But there was one strange thing about Terence,
and Ellen herself had to admit it. After that very hour, when he was
one day old, when Mrs. O'Brien came to see him and christened him, or
tried to--she never felt sure till long afterward whether she had done
it or not--he was always quiet when she was near. He would drive poor
Ellen nearly crazy, in spite of all her excuses for him, when he was
alone with her, but the moment that Mrs. O'Brien came into the house
he would get as far away from her as he could, and then lie perfectly
still and watch her, for all the world, as John said once, like a rat
in a trap watching a cat. Ellen said that it was because he always
remembered that it was Mrs. O'Brien who had dropped him once. To this
John replied: "Then maybe he'ld be making you less trouble, Ellen, if
you was to drop him yourself once or twice." But Mrs. O'Brien said
that it was just because he knew what she would do to him if she had
the chance.

And there was another strange thing about Terence. As he grew a little
older, he never could be got inside a church. Father Duffy had never
even seen him, except when he came to the