"Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him
latterly. Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there I'd find him
with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his
mouth open."

She laid a finger against her nose and frowned: then she continued:

"But still and all he kept on saying that before the summer was
over he'd go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house
again where we were all born down in Irishtown and take me and
Nannie with him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled
carriages that makes no noise that Father O'Rourke told him about,
them with the rheumatic wheels, for the day cheap--he said, at
Johnny Rush's over the way there and drive out the three of us
together of a Sunday evening. He had his mind set on that.... Poor
James!"

"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" said my aunt.

Eliza took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then
she put it back again in her pocket and gazed into the empty grate
for some time without speaking.

"He was too scrupulous always," she said. "The duties of the
priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you might
say, crossed."

"Yes," said my aunt. "He was a disappointed man. You could see
that."