I am, my dear Father Letheby,
Yours in Christ,
——
"I never doubted the bishop," I said, when I had read that splendid letter a second time. "His Lordship knows how to distinguish between the accidents of a priestly life and the essentials of the priestly character. You have another letter, I believe?"
"Yes," he replied, as if he were moonstruck; "a clear receipt from the Loughboro' Factory Co. for the entire amount."
"Then Alice was right. God bless the Holy Souls!—though I'm not sure if that's the right expression."
There never was such uproar in Kilronan before. The news sped like wildfire. The village turned out en masse. Father Letheby had to stand such a cross-fire of blessings and questions and prayers, that we decided he had better clear out on Thursday. Besides, there was an invitation from Father Duff to meet a lot of the brethren at an agape at his house on Thursday night, when Father Letheby would be en route. God bless me! I thought that evening we'd never get the little mare under way. The people thronged round the little trap, kissed the young curate's hand, kissed the lapels of his coat, demanded his blessing a hundred times, fondled the mare and patted her head, until at last, slowly, as a glacier pushing its moraine before it, we wedged our way through a struggling mass of humanity.
"God be wid you, a hundred times!"
"And may His Blessed Mother purtect you!"
"And may your journey thry wid you!"
"Yerra, the bishop, 'oman, could not get on widout him. That's the raison!"
"Will we iver see ye agin, yer reverence?"