Hyacinth

t they have sometimes attracted the attention of the English public, and drawn to their contest a little quite unintelligent interest. The simplest and most discernible line of d

lways included the bulk of the people. Its leaders have not cared for the welfare of Ireland any more than the Protestant party, but they have always pretended that they did, being in this respect much wiser than their opponents. They have pulled the strings of a whole series of political movements, and made puppets dance on and off the stage as they chose. Also they have understood how to deal with England. Unlike the Protestant party, they have never been loyal, because they knew from the first that England gives most to those who bully or worry her. They have kept one object steadily in view, an object quite as selfish in reality as that of the ari

d of the volunteers, 'The King, the Lords, and the Commons of Ireland.' Some have dreamed of a complete independence, of an Irish republic shaping its own world policy. Some have wholly distrusted politics, and given their strength to the intellectual, spiritual, or material regeneration of the people. Among these men have been found the sanest practical reformers and the wildest revolutionary dreamers. On the outskirts of their company have hung all sorts of people. Parliamentary politicians have leaned towards them, and been driven straightway out of public life. Criminals have claimed fellowship with them, and brought discredit upon honourable men. Poets and men of letters have drawn their inspiration from their strivings, and in return have decked their patriotism with imperishable splendour. In the future, no doubt, the strug

ayed upon her head. It was arranged upon no recognised system, and suggested that she had perfected the art, known generally only to heroines of romances, of twisting her tresses with a single movement into a loose knot. That she affected white frills of immense complexity was frequently evident, owing to the difficulty she experienced in confining her long legs to feminine attitudes. Her complexion put it in the power of her enemies to accuse her of familiarity with cosmetics-a slander, for she had been observed to turn green during an attack of sea-sickness. She had great brilliant eyes, which were capable of expressing intensity of enthusiasm or hatred, but no one had ever seen them soften with any emotion like love. Her attitude towards social conventions was symbolized

the historical reality of the Tuath-de-Danaan, and got irritated at the most casual mention of Dr. Petrie's theory of the round towers. He had proved that King Arthur was an Irishman, with whose reputation Malory and Tennyson had taken unwarrantable liberties. The name of Dante brought a smile of contempt to his lips, for he knew that the 'Purgatorio' was stolen shamelessly from the works of a monk of Cong. He nourished a secret passion for Finol

to the conclusion that he lacked vocation for the priesthood, sent him home. Timothy was accustomed to say that his violence might have been passed over, but that his failure to appreciate the devotion to duty which inspired the tale-bearer marked him decisively as unfit for ordination. He never regretted his expulsion, although he complained bitterly that he had been nearly choked before they cast him out. He meant, it is to be supposed,

yacinth warmly as

d a staff of nurses for the Boers. It is a shame to have to admit that the English garrison in Ireland ca

d Grealy, 'is in the hands of a

dlords are not the wealthy part of the community any longer. There's many a provincial publican calling himself a Nationalist who could buy up the

to the apathy or treachery of the priests, call it which you like. There isn't a Protestant church in the country where the parsons

yer, 'I made sure the subscriptions would have come in. Your appeal was one of t

y church door after Mass. That's what we ought to have, but it's exactly what we won't get, because the priests are Wes

Ireland cares a pin about the Boers. Why on earth should we? From all I can hear they are a narrow-minded, intolerant set of hypocrites. I'd just as soon read the stuff some foo

hink--' sa

teers to go out and fight, instead of nurses to cocker up the men

ad against you. They would have nipped the whole project

sts who cursed Tara, and the monks who broke the power of the Iris

pted the poor

anyway. Let's p

rs or the Dublin Fusiliers, or some confounded Militia regiment. There's nobody left but the nice, respectable, go

shoot their officers, and walk over t

n he perceived that she was actually in earnest, the smile froze into

blurted out. 'The name of Irishman wi

hair. She stood over Hyacinth, her hands clenched and her bosom heavi

d, 'except the one of fighting for England. Any deed agai

who murdered their officers and deserted to an enemy in the field. It was not until hours afterwards, when the vivid impression of Finola's face had faded from his recollection, when he had begun to forget the flash of her eyes, the poise of her figure, and the glow of her draperies, that his moral sense was able to reassert itself. Then he knew that she had

till further to understand the position of his new friends. Tim Halloran and

ed Halloran. 'You look as if you'

you like a bit of the cake?' He produced from his pocket a paper containing crushed fragments of white sugar an

do you mean?'

erstand this delicate playfulness. I was present to-day at the reception of my only sister into the Institute of the Catholic Sisters of Pity, founded by Honoria Kavanagh. I've lost Bird

r case?' asked Tim in a pe

me he had got four hundred pounds put by for Birdie's fortune, and that I was to have my medical course and whatever the old shop would fetch when he was gone. T

Protestants he had grown up to regard monasticism in all its f

d. 'What sort of a girl was

girl you could imagine going into a convent. She was pretty, fond of nice clothes and admiration, as keen as every girl ought to be

Hyacinth, 'your

Maguire. 'Perhaps my mo

tle lower down in the social scale, in the class I come from, the boys are made priests. A doctor is a more expensive article to manufacture, so Maguire'

acinth. 'I thought a vocation

irl up to a vocation. It takes a man a lifetime to make six hundred pounds in a country shop, but there's many a one who does it by hard work and self-denial; then down come the nuns and sweep it away, and it's wasted. It ought to be invested in a local factory or in waterw

of them caught every year for nuns, and swept out of life. It isn't the Irish convents alone that get them. American nuns come over and Australian nuns, and they go roun

h, 'that when you think that way you s

wouldn't rob us, but-but think of the cold of it. You can't realize it, Conneally, but think what it would mean to a Catholic-a religion without saints, wi

by old women who think the name of Englishman the most glorious in the world. You preach loyalty, and I believe you pr

ndays, and often went to confession. It was a puzzle how he could do so, feeling as he did about the religious Orders. So insistent did the problem become to his m

e or of fretfulness. It seems to me as if her whole life might be described as a quiet smile. I always feel better by the mere recollection of her face for a long time after I have visited her.

can understand how that would make all the dif

one grow into it, if one wished to very much, and if the

ested. Mary O'Dwyer spoke of growing into vocation, Tim of the

r. Henry about the position of th

ve no support in Scripture, history, or reason. Our books remai

people a Church which they

iests duly ordained at the hands of an Episcopate which goes back in an unbroken line to the Apostles. We present them the three great creeds for their asse

'but it is not national. In sentiment an

in the cry for nationality. It is a sentiment, a fashion, and will pass. Even if it were genuine and enduring, I hold it to be better for Ireland to be an i

o, but Dr. Henry laid a hand up

do. There is nothing more fatal to a man among the people with whom you and I are to live and work than the suspicion of being tainted with Nationalist ideas. You c