“Tim must have his joke,” observed Mrs. Casey, her face as white as a sheet.
“Uncle is so full of fun,” tittered Matilda, dire apprehension in every lineament.
“It’s no jest; is it, Tibie?” asked Tim of his fiancée.
“No, Timothy, I am proud to say it is not,” responded Miss Beamish, placing her hand in the arm of her lover.
“And to think I gave that Bowdler a hundred pounds for to lose us forty thousand,” groaned Casey, as, seated with his weeping wife and daughter, he grimly surveyed the wedding-cards of Mr. and Mrs. T. Rooney. “This comes of yer infernal tomfoolery wantin’ to get into society that wouldn’t touch ye with a forty-foot pole. Serve ye right.”
“Serve us right indeed!” echoed the two ladies.
CATHOLIC “CIRCLES” FOR WORKING-MEN IN FRANCE.
Immediately after the German invasion and the Paris Commune there existed already at Paris a Catholic “Circle” of working-men, distinct, if not in appearance, yet in reality, from the associations of young apprentices called by this name, or under the more appropriate one of Patronages. It was, in fact, a working-men’s association—a little Christian republic; self-governing, by means of a council chosen from among its own number, the members of which council were considered as irremovable. On its festivals the whole association assembled in the chapel belonging to the circle; there its elected functionaries were received into office at the foot of the altar, there they made frequent communions, and thence, in accordance with the customs of the ancient confraternities of craftsmen, they bore in procession the banners of their patron saints. There were formed earnest men, accustomed to hear the language of duty, and ready to make the sacrifices it demands, as those of their number who died in the war had testified, as well as the many more who did not cease to incur, with patience and steadfastness, the persecutions of their scoffing companions in the ateliers.