he Right Rev. Bishop Hegan and his younger brother were holding a family conclave in the Bishop's library, one at each side of the sermon-strewn writing-table.
"I may be wrong," the younger man was saying, "but I see no better way out of my difficulty. My dear brother, you pray every Sunday for fatherless children and widows; why don't you mention widowers and motherless children; they are in far more need of help."
"It is hard," said the Bishop, sympathetically; "but I am afraid you are making your path harder by this last move."
Mr. Hegan made no effort to contradict his brother. "I see no better way," he repeated. "I went to Mildred's, and there found Tom, a boy of eighteen, eating his ten-o'clock breakfast—quail on toast. I picked Master Tom up with me and went on. At Jane's I found my four other young ones. But you have seen for yourself how I found them."
The Bishop laughed genially. "There was nothing to worry you in their training."
"No, for there was none. Perhaps I ought to have let their mother's sister bring them up as she offered."
"Whip them up, you mean," said the Bishop.
"Exactly; that's why I refused. It was good of my sisters to take my children for me; but they are not as their mother left them."
"No," said the Bishop, shaking his head; "they have lost what cannot be replaced. I suppose, Tom, you are not thinking of marrying again?" The brothers talked together with the utmost freedom, the younger answering the point-blank question as frankly as it was asked.