answered by Father Casey,
parish assistant. A sour-faced and suspicious young man, Father Casey,
thick-spectacled, and pointed of nose. Nothing of the jolly priest about
him. He was new to the town, but he recognized Fanny and surveyed her
darkly.

"Father Fitzpatrick in? I'm Fanny Brandeis."

"The reverend father is busy," and the glass door began to close.

"Who is it?" boomed a voice from within. "Who're you turning away,
Casey?"

"A woman, not a parishioner." The door was almost shut now.

Footsteps down the hall. "Good! Let her in." The door opened ever so
reluctantly. Father Fitzpatrick loomed up beside his puny assistant,
dwarfing him. He looked sharply at the figure on the porch. "For the
love of--! Casey, you're a fool! How you ever got beyond being an
altar-boy is more than I can see. Come in, child. Come in! The man's cut
out for a jailor, not a priest."

Fanny's two hands were caught in one of his big ones, and she was led
down the hall to the study. It was the room of a scholar and a man, and
the one spot in the house that defied the housekeeper's weapons of broom
and duster. A comfortable and disreputable room, full of books, and
fishing tackle, and chairs with sagging springs, and a sofa that was
dented with friendly hollows. Pipes on the disorderly desk. A copy
of "Mr. Dooley" spread face down on what appeared to be next Sunday's
sermon, rough-drafted.

"I just wanted to talk to you." Fanny drifted to the shelves, book-lover
that she was, and ran a finger over a half-dozen titles. "Your assistant
was justified, really, in closing the door on me. But I'm glad you
rescued me." She came over to him and stood looking up at him. He seemed
to loom up endlessly, though hers was a medium height. "I think I really
wanted to talk to you about that ravine, though I came to say good-by."

"Sit down, child, sit down!" He creaked into his great
leather-upholstered desk chair, himself. "If you had left without seeing
me I'd have excommunicated Casey. Between you and me the man's mad. His
job ought to be duenna to a Spanish maiden, not assistant to a priest
with a leaning toward the flesh."

Now, Father Fitzpatrick talked with a--no, you couldn't call it a
brogue. It was nothing so gross as that. One does not speak of the
flavor of a rare wine; one calls attention to its bouquet. A subtle,
teasing, elusive something that just tickles the senses instead
of punching them in the ribs. So his speech was permea