"Do you call that clean?"
"Begor you may," said she, "but I'll have my story first."
And so she had. Father Letheby gave me his version afterwards. He did so with the utmost delicacy, for it was all an indirect indictment of my own slovenliness and sinful carelessness. I listened with shamed face and bent head? And determined to let him have his way. I knew that Mrs. Darcy would not leave for America just yet.
But what was my surprise on the following Sunday, when, on entering the sacristy to prepare for Mass, I slid along a polished floor, and but for the wall would probably have left a vacancy at Kilronan to some expectant curate. The floor glinted and shone with wax; and there were dainty bits of fibre matting here and there. The grate was black-leaded, and there was a wonderful firescreen with an Alpine landscape. The clock was clicking steadily, as if Time had not stood still for us all for many years: and there were my little altar boys in snowy surplices as neat as the acolytes that proffered soap and water to the Archbishop of Rheims, when he called for bell and book in the famous legend.
But oh! my anguish when I drew a stiff white amice over my head, instead of the dear old limp and wrinkled one I was used to; and when I feebly tried to push my hands through the lace meshes of an alb, that would stand with stiffness and pride, if I placed it on the floor. I would gladly have called for my old garment; but I knew that I too had to undergo the process of the new reformation; and, with much agony, I desisted. But I drew the line at a biretta which cut my temples with its angles, and I called out:—
"Mrs. Darcy."
A young woman, with her hair all tidied up, and with a white apron, laced at the edges, and pinned to her breast, came out from a recess. She was smiling bashfully, and appeared as if she would like to run away and hide somewhere.
"Mrs. Darcy," I called again.
The young woman smiled more deeply, and said with a kind of smirk:—
"Here I am, your reverence!"