He was a strong and able driver, and his big car whirled up Father Greer’s neat and narrow drive, holding undeviatingly the crown of the high-cambered track, and stopped dead at the front door of the Parochial House.

That Spirit of the Nation to whom allusion has occasionally been made in these pages, was by now well accustomed to the discouragement that she had ever received from the two young lovers whose betrothal she had been powerless to forbid.  She had fled from the benign fairy influences of the Tober an Sidhe; but now, full of hope, she was hovering with wide-spread wings over the Parochial House, and, as its door was opened by Father Greer’s elderly and ugly housekeeper, the Spirit folded her wings and slipped past her, as by a familiar path, into the priest’s sitting-room.

Father Greer was “inside,” the elderly and ugly housekeeper said; “would the Doctor sit in the parlour a minute and he’d come down?”

The Doctor “sat” as requested, in the parlour, noting, as he had often noted before, its arid asceticism, wondering how any man could stand the life of a priest, respecting the power that could enable a man to dispense with all the things that, in his opinion—­which, by the way, he pronounced “oping-en”—­made life worth living.

Father Greer came imperceptibly into the room while the Doctor was still pondering upon the hardness of the black horsehair-covered armchair in which he was seated.

“Why, Doctor, this is an unexpected pleasure!  I heard you were away,” the priest said, laying a limp hand in the Doctor’s big fist.

“So I was too.  I was summoned to a consultation.  That’s what I’m come to you about, Father.  It’s old Prendergast.  I’m thinking he won’t last much longer.”

“D’ye mean Daniel?  The Member?”

“I do.”

Father Greer took his thin nose, with the nostrils edged with red, between his finger and thumb, and pinched it slowly downwards several times.

“Well, what then?” he said at length.

“That’s the point,” said the Big Doctor, looking at the priest’s pale and bumpy forehead, and trying in vain to catch his eye.  “You know that young Coppinger’s name was sent up by our local Committee four years ago, and the Party approved it.”

“I wonder were they in the right!” said Father Greer, still pinching his nose, and looking up at the Doctor over his knuckles.

“I don’t see who we could find that’d do better,” said Dr. Mangan, apologetically.  “He’s well off, and he holds strong Nationalist oping-ens; and then, of course, he’s a Catholic.”

“I’m told he didn’t go to Mass since he came home”; Father Greet let the statement fall without expression.

“Ah well, he’s only just back from France.  Give him a little time, and he’ll come to himself,” said the Doctor, still apologetic.

“I understand he’s been painting Miss Christian Talbot-Lowry’s portrait,” pursued Father Greer, with limpid simplicity.  “I’m told she’s as pretty a young girl as there is in this neighbourhood.”