"You have the lamp of Aladdin," I said admiringly. "Now, who's to be there?"
"All the gentry and the élite of the neighborhood," he said.
"Rather a limited audience for a great occasion," I couldn't help saying.
"No matter," he cried, rising up; "it is a good work, however. But you'll take the chair, Father Dan, won't you?"
"All right," I replied, but with a little misgiving, for no one knows what necromancy this fellow is capable of, and I had already conjured up visions of the Lord Lieutenant and the Dowager This and the Countess That—"but mind you, my speech is to come in at the end; and I promise you they won't have to look long at their watches."
"Very good, sir," he replied, "all is now arranged."
I went down to see my little martyr, for she is pleased to say that I do her good by my visits. There she lay meekly, the big crucifix in her hands, and her lips always moving in silent prayer. The children often come in to see her, she told me, and read by her bedside; for now there is no jealousy, nor triumph, but all have begun to think that there is a saint in the parish. The little milliner used come at the beginning, and bring her little novelettes and journals, and talk about the fashions, which only made the sufferer unhappy. All that is now stopped; and the "Clock of the Passion" and the "Visions of Catherine Emmerich" are now her only reading.
"Mr. Ormsby was here again to-day," she said.
"Indeed. And was he as inquisitive as usual?"
"Nearly," she said, with a smile. "But do you know, Daddy Dan, I think he'll become a Catholic. Isn't it an awful thing not to be a Catholic, Daddy Dan?"