The Damnation of Theron Ware

on, made him one of their party. He felt himself flushing under the idea that they would think he had waited for them-was thrusting himself up

them bringing the poor man home, and-and quite without thinki

this was his second apology. The girl smiled pl

aid, quite as if she had known him all h

atted her on the shoulder with the air of being fifty years her senior instead of fifteen. T

n effect. Of course in this case it made no difference; but I have had to make it a rule not to go out at night unless they bring me a physician's card with his assurance that it is a genuine affair. Why, only last winter, I was routed up after midnight, and brought off in the mud and pelting rain up one of the new streets on the hillside there, simply because a facto

ut that novel death-bed scene, with the winged captain of the angelic host, the Baptist, the glorified Fisherman and the Preacher, all being summoned down in the pomp of li

ig deep enough for the roots of these things. They all turn up Turanian if we probe far enough. Our ways separate here, I'm afraid. I a

up another street some distance, before the

nd had talked of you; but MY poor inferior sex has to be introduced. I am Celi

oke that he had slavishly echoed the formula of the priest. He could think of

nd laughed again. Then she spoke more seriously. "That ceremony must have interested you a good deal, never havi

a great experience for me. May-may I ask, is it a part of your

through father sending him up to trim a tree. Ann MacEvoy will never forgive us that, the longest day she lives. Did you notice her? She wouldn't speak to me. After you came out, I t

cteristic of our restless civilization. Two or three of the houses survived untouched from the earlier days-prim, decorous structures, each with its gabled centre and lower wings, each with its row of fluted columns supporting the classical roof of a piazza across its whole front, each vying with the others i

idences, thus frankly proffering friendship to the passer-by, were of wood painted in drabs and dusky reds, with bulging windows which marked the native yearning for the mediaeval, and shingles that strove to be ac

rtant-looking of these new edifices, and said, holding out

o associate this girl with that village magnate. It was stupid of him, of course, because she had herself mentioned her father. He looked at her again with an awkward smile, as he formally shook the gloved hand she gave him, and lifted his soft hat. The strong noon sunlight, forcing its way dow

way, the young minister had time to think ab

ntry, Theron had scarcely ever spoken to a person of this curiously alien race before. He remembered now that there had been some dozen or more Irish families in Tyre, quartered in the outskirts amo

point. His boyhood had been spent in those bitter days when social, political, and blood prejudices were fused at white heat in the public crucible together. When he went to the Church Seminary, it was a matter of course that every member of the faculty was a Republican, and that every one of his classmates had come from a Republican household. When, later on, he entered the ministry, the rule was still incredulous of exceptions. One might as well have looked in the Nedahma Conference for a divergence of opinion on the Trinity as for a di

efore-an abhorrent spectacle, truly! The foundations upon which its dark bulk reared itself were ignorance, squalor, brutality and vice. Pigs wallowed in the mire before its base, and burrowing into this base were a myriad of narrow doors, each bearing the hateful sign of a saloon, and giving forth from its recesses of night the sounds of screams and curses. Above were sculptured rows of lo

k December. Then he smiled, and the bad vision went off into space. He saw instead Father Forbes, in the white and purple vestments, standing by poor MacEvoy's bedside, with his pale, chiselled, luminous, uplifted face, and he heard only the proud, confident clangi

mewhere, or read, it might be, that they were a people much given to songs and music. And the young lady, that very handsome and friendly Miss Madden, had told him that she was a musician! He had a new pleasure in turning this over in his mind. Of all the closed doors which his choice of a career had left along his pathway, no other had for him such a magical fascina

f polish and intellectual culture in the town should be Irish. The Romish priest must have been vastly surprised at his intrusion, yet had been at the greatest pains to act as if it were quite the usual thing to have Methodist ministers assist at Extreme Unction. And the young woman-how gracefully, with what delicacy, had she comprehended h

tting-room, and as he entered from the hall the partner of his joys bustled in by the other door, bearing the steaming platter of corned beef, dumplings, cabbages, and carrots, with arms bared to the elbows, and a red face. I

h an obvious suggestion of propitiation in her tone that Theron went around and kissed her. He thought of saying somet

to be?" he asked, after they were seated, and he had in

ortal slow. If I hadn't stood right over her, we shouldn't have had

asked the minister,

"That Welsh woman we heard of couldn't come, after all; and they say, too, that she presumes dreadfully upon the acquaintance, being a church member, you know. So we simply had to fall back on the

out their telling such things to their

erstood so, too; they're bound to tell EVERYTHING in confession. That's what

one's observations from their context, and so give them meanings quite unintended. They are also great hands," he added genially,

s were on other things. "I shouldn't like that woman's pri

xteen hundred other houses for him to watch, so that he may not get around to us for quite a spell. Why, seriously, Alice, what on earth do you suppose Father Forbes knows or cares about our poor little affairs, or those of any other Protestant household

of them," said Alice, as