“Ah, God save us,—God save us!” was all Aunt Winnie could murmur, tearfully.
“And I guess thirty-five dollars will run those rosebud rooms of yours pretty safe and slick; won’t they, Mrs. Mulligan? So put Aunt Winnie and me down as tenants right off.”
“I will,—I will!” answered Mrs. Mulligan, joyfully. “Sure my heart was like lead in my breast at the thought of giving up yer bit of things, Miss Winnie. But now,—now come along, Molly girl, and we’ll be fixing the rooms, this minute. What’s the good of yer going back to the Sisters at all?” And Mrs. Mulligan put a motherly arm around Aunt Winnie’s trembling form. “Give her another cup of tea, Molly; for she’s all done up with joy at having her own home and her own boy again, thank God for that same!”
And then, leaving dear Aunt Winnie to this good friend’s tender ministrations, Dan kept on his way to St. Andrew’s, taking a flying leap over the college wall to the sunset walk, where perhaps he would find Father Mack saying his Office. He was not mistaken: his old friend was there, walking slowly under the arching trees. His face kindled into light as he stretched out a trembling hand.
“I thought perhaps you would come here, my boy,” he said. “I was just thanking God, Danny. Brother Bart has told us the good news. It is all right, as I hoped and prayed,—all right, as I knew it would be, Danny. Now tell me, yourself, all about this wonderful blessing.”
And again this father and son sat down upon the broken grave slab, and Danny told Father Mack all.
“Ah, it is the good God’s hand!” the old priest said softly. “But this is only the start, my son. The climb is still before you,—a climb that may lead over steeps sharp and rough as the rocks of Killykinick.”
But the fading light seemed to aureole Father Mack’s silvery head as he spoke.
“You will keep on and up,—on and up; for God is calling you, my son,—calling you to heights where He leads His own—heights which as yet you can not see.”
The speaker laid his hand upon Dan’s head in benediction that thrilled the boy’s heart to its deepest depths,—a benediction that he never forgot; for it was Father Mack’s last. Only a few days later the college bell’s solemn note, sounding over the merry greetings of the gathering students, told that for the good old priest all the lessons of life were over.