"His lordship's apologies, sir. He has an engagement to-day, but hopes to see you at your own house to-morrow morning."
I recognised the speaker as the guardian (grown greyer and even less prepossessing) who had crossed with the young Lord Raa when he was going up to Oxford; and his companions were a smooth-faced man with searching eyes who was introduced as his lordship's solicitor from London, a Mr. Curphy, whom I knew to be my father's advocate, and my dear old Father Dan.
I was surprised to find Father Dan a smaller man than I had thought him, very plain and provincial, a little country parish priest, but he had the tender smile I always remembered, and the sweet Irish roll of the vowels that I could never forget.
"God bless you," he said. "How well you're looking! And how like your mother, Lord rest her soul! I knew the Blessed Virgin would take care of you, and she has, she has."
Three conveyances were waiting for us—a grand brougham for the Bishop, a big motor-car for the guardian and the London lawyer, and a still bigger one for ourselves.
"Well, s'long until to-morrow then," cried my father, getting up into the front row of his own ear, with the advocate beside him and Father Dan and myself behind.
On the way home Father Dan talked of the business that had brought me back, saying I was not to think too much of anything he might have said of Lord Raa in his letters, seeing that he had spoken from hearsay, and the world was so censorious—and then there was no measuring the miraculous influence that might be exercised by a good woman.
He said this with a certain constraint, and was more at ease when he spoke of the joy that ought to come into a girl's life at her marriage—her first love, her first love-letter, her wedding-day and her first baby, all the sweet and wonderful things of a new existence which a man could never know.
"Even an old priest may see that," he said, with a laugh and a pat of my hand.
We dropped Mr. Curphy at his house in Holmtown, and then my father sat with us at the back, and talked with tremendous energy of what he had done, of what he was going to do, and of all the splendours that were before me.