"Well?" asked Jeremiah, after Father McGowan had laid down a pink sheet of paper with an engraved daisy at the top. "Well?"
"Hum," grunted Father McGowan, "Hum!" He stared long at a brick which lay on the top shelf of a gilt cabinet. "I'm going up to Boston," he said at length. "I'll look in on our little Cecilia."
"Will yuh, now?" asked Jeremiah. "It's kept me awake nights, thinkin' that mebbe in spite of all the expense, she wasn't happy. I wanted to go up, but Johnny sez I wasn't suitable fer a girls' school, being as I remove my collar absent-minded like (having always did it)."
"You're suitable, all right," said Father McGowan, "but since I am going up, I might as well attend to it. Hard for you to leave business, too."
"Yes," admitted Jeremiah happily. He swelled and cast a loving eye toward the brick. Then he wilted. The proud pleasure was gone. "She always wanted a bunnit with pink roses on," he said in a low voice, "an' I couldn't never buy her none, an' now——!"
Father McGowan laid a hand on Jeremiah's. "There, there, Jerry!" he said. "Think how happy you're making the children!"
A sallow boy came in. He cast a sneering look at a limp figure in a gilt chair. Then, without a word, he picked up a book and went out.
Jeremiah's eyes were like a child's—the eyes of a frightened child. "Sometimes," he said in a whisper, "I'm afraid he's ashamed of me!"
"No!" exploded Father McGowan, "No!"
There is nothing like the scorn of the undetected guilty for those who are exposed. Cecilia was treated to fine scorn, supercilious looks, and, worst of all, a chill overlooking; for she had allowed a boy whom she'd never met to buy her a soda water and a pink sundae! And,—what made the offence doubly revolting?—was the fact that the boy was considered by the girls a man, and that those who had seen him termed him "Ravishing, my dear!" He,—but let us quote: "Simply Ravishing, my dear, with dark eyes and hair. Honestly, he looked as if he had a secret sorrow, or was on the stage, or was fearfully fast. Something wonderfully interesting about him, you know. Why he would ever look at her, I can't see,——" etc.