"Naw," she said, "it's grandmaw's name."
"It's a pretty name all the same," I replied; "may you wear it as long as grandma."
The girls were all sitting at the machines waiting. Down near the end of the hall were two individuals in close conversation. They looked prosaic and dull amid all the excitement. When I got near them I saw the man, who was looking at me steadily, with one eye closed, whilst I was speaking. He was an infidel, a Giaour, an incredulous, questioning, calculating unbeliever in all my rosy forecastings. He was the manager over from Loughboro'. The lady was manageress, and had come over to superintend the initial proceedings at Kilronan. Somehow I didn't like them. They chilled the atmosphere. There was that cool, business-like air about them, that L. S. D. expression that shears off the rays of imagination, and measures and weighs everything by the same low standard. I saw Father Letheby buoyant, enthusiastic, not merely hopeful, but certain of the success of his enterprise. I saw these two business people chatting and consulting together, and I knew by their looks that they were not quite so sanguine. It was "the little rift within the lute."
As I went home, pondering and thinking,—for I didn't wait for the tea and cake that are supposed to be essential to all these gatherings,—I heard the patter of a light foot behind me, and in a minute Bittra was by my side.
"Dear me!" she panted, "you are so young and active, Father Dan, it is hard to keep up with you."
By which kind sarcasm I knew that Bittra had something good to tell me.
"Shall I call you Bittra or Beata?" I replied, looking down at her flushed face.
"Beata! Beata! Beatissima!" she said, in a kind of ecstasy; "it is all right; and God is so good!"
"I always object to the fireworks style of elocution on the part of my curate," I said, "and if you could shed a calm, lambent light on this ecstatic episode, it would suit my slow intellect."
"Slow," she said, stopping,—"do you know, Father Dan, that is, you do know, that you have just made one of the nimblest, wittiest, drollest, most eloquent speeches that ever was made. I heard Mrs. S—— say that she never could have believed—"