erance retreat conducted
by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and
benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there gathered
together without distinction of social class (and a most edifying
spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves, after the
storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the immaculate,
reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her to intercede
for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin of virgins. How
sad to poor Gerty's ears! Had her father only avoided the clutches of
the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit
cured in Pearson's Weekly, she might now be rolling in her carriage,
second to none. Over and over had she told herself that as she mused by
the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp because she hated two
lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window dreamily by the hour at
the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But that vile decoction
which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cist its shadow over her
childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in the home circle deeds of
violence caused by intemperance and had seen her own father, a prey to
the fumes of intoxication, forget himself completely for if there was
one thing of all things that Gerty knew it was that the man who lifts
his hand to a woman save in the way of kindness, deserves to be branded
as the lowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard
her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman
off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like
himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him
any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a
father because he was too old or something or on account of his face
(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the
pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor
father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang _Tell me,
Mary, how to woo thee_ or _My love and cottage near Rochelle_ and they
had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby's salad dressing for
supper and when he sang _The moon hath raised_ with Mr Dignam that
died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her
mother's bir