’The story you tell seems simple enough, but it doesn’t sound all right.  Why should she go away to Berkshire to help Mr. Walter Poole with his literature without giving you longer notice?  It seems strange to write to one who has taken all the trouble you have to find her work—­“I have discovered a post that suits me better and am going away to-morrow.”  Of course she has her child to think of.  But have you made inquiries?  I suppose you must have done.  You would not let her go away to a man of whom you know nothing.  She says that he is the father of one of her pupils.  But she doesn’t know him, yet she is going to live in his house to help him with his literature.  Have you inquired, dear Father O’Grady, what this man’s writings are, if he is a Catholic or a Protestant?  I should not like Miss Nora Glynn to go into a Protestant household, where she would hear words of disrespect for the religion she has been brought up in.

’As I write I ask myself if there is a Catholic chapel within walking distance; and if there isn’t, will he undertake to send her to Mass every Sunday?  I hope you have made all these inquiries, and if you have not made them, will you make them at once and write to me and relieve my anxiety?  You are aware of the responsibilities I have incurred and will appreciate the anxiety that I feel.

’Yours very sincerely,

‘OLIVER GOGARTY.’

It seemed to Father Oliver so necessary that Father O’Grady should get his letter as soon as possible that he walked to Bohola; but soon after dropping the letter in the box he began to think that he might have written more judiciously, and on his way home he remembered that he had told Father O’Grady, and very explicitly, that he should have made inquiries regarding Mr. Walter Poole’s literature before he allowed Nora Glynn to go down to Berkshire to help him with his literary work.  Of course he hoped, and it was only natural that he should hope, that Father O’Grady had made all reasonable inquiries; but it seemed to him now that he had expressed himself somewhat peremptorily.  Father O’Grady was an old man—­how old he did not know—­but himself was a young man, and he did not know in what humour Father O’Grady might read his letter.  If the humour wasn’t propitious he might understand it as an impertinence.  It vexed him that he had shown so much agitation, and he stopped to think.  But it was so natural that he should be concerned about Nora Glynn.  All the same, his anxiety might strike Father O’Grady as exaggerated.  A temperate letter, he reflected, is always better; and the evening was spent in writing another letter to Father O’Grady, a much longer one, in which he thanked Father O’Grady for asking him to come to see him if he should ever find himself in London.  ‘Of course,’ he wrote, ’I shall be only too pleased to call on you, and no doubt we shall have a great deal to talk about—­two Irishmen always have; and when I feel the need of change imminent, I will try to go to London, and do