"But for all that," observed Andy Lalor, "it's still best to go to the
man that puts the questions, you persave, and that won't let the turning
of a straw escape him. Whin myself goes to Father Philemy, somehow or
other, I totally disremember more nor wan half of what I intinded to
tell him, but Father Con misses nothing, for he axes it."

When the last observation was finished, Father Con, finding that the
usual hour for breakfast had arrived, came into the kitchen, to prepare
for the celebration of mass. For this purpose, a table was cleared, and
just in the nick of time arrived old Moll Brian, the vestment woman, or
itinerant sacristan, whose usual occupation was to carry the priests'
robes and other apparatus, from station to station. In a short time,
Father Con was surpliced and robed; Andy Lalor, whose face was charged
with commensurate importance during the ceremony, sarved Mass, and
answered the priest stoutly in Latin although he had not the advantage
of understanding that sacerdotal language. Those who had confessed, now
communicated; after which, each of them took a draught, of water out of
a small jug, which was handed round from one to another. The ceremony
then closed, and those who had partaken of the sacrament, with the
exception of such as were detained for breakfast, after filling their
bottles with holy water, went home with a light heart. A little before
the mass had been finished, Father Philemy arrived; but, as Phaddy and
Katty were then preparing to resave they could not at that moment give
him a formal reception. As soon, however, as communion was over, the
_cead millia failtha_ was repeated with the usual warmth, by both, and
by all their immediate friends. Breakfast was now laid in Katty's
best style, and with an originality of arrangement that scorned all
precedent. Two tables were placed, one after another, in the kitchen;
for the other rooms were not sufficiently large to accommodate the
company. Father Philemy filled the seat of honor at the head of the