“An’ pray, Docthor,” he inquired, “where is Father Molony, that he’s not wid you?  I hope he won’t disappoint us; he’s a mighty pleasant gintleman of an evenin’, an’, barrin’ your Reverence, I don’t know a man tells a better story.”

“He entreated permission from me this morning,” replied Father Finnerty, “and that was leave to pay a visit to the Bishop, for what purpose I know not, unless to put in a word in season for the first parish that becomes vacant.”

“Throth, an’ he well desarves a parish,” replied Denis; “an’ although we’d be loath to part wid him, still we’d be proud to hear of his promotion.”

“He’ll meet Denis there,” observed Susan, who had returned from the stile:  “he’ll be apt to be present at his trial wid the Bishop; an’ maybe he’ll be home along wid him.  I’ll go an’ thry if I can see them agin;” and she flew out once more to watch their return.

“Now, Father Finnerty,” said an uncle of Denis’s, “you can give a good guess at what a dacent parish ought to be worth to a parish priest?”

“Mrs. O’Shaughnessy,” said the priest, “is that fat brown goose suspended before the fire, of your own rearing?”

“Indeed it is, plase your Reverence; but as far as good male an phaties could go for the last month, it got the benefit of them.”

“And pray, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, have you many of the same kidney?  I only ask for information, as I said to Peery Hacket’s wife, the last day I held the Station in Peery’s.  There was just such another goose hanging before the fire; but, you must know, the cream of the joke was, that I had been after coming from the confessional, as hungry as a man could conveniently wish himself; and seeing the brown fat goose before the fire just as that is, why my teeth, Mave, began to get lachrymose.  Upon my Priesthood it was such a goose as a priest’s corpse might get up on its elbow to look at, and exclaim, ’avourneen machree, it’s a thousand pities that I’m not living to have a cut at you!’—­ha, ha, ha!  God be good to old Friar Hennessy, I have that joke from him.

“‘Well, Mrs. Hacket,’ says I, as I was airing my fingers at the fire, ’I dare say you haven’t another goose like this about the house?  Now, tell me, like an honest woman, have you any of the same kidney?—­I only ask for information.’

“Mrs. Hacket, however, told me she believed there might be a few of the same kind straggling about the place, but said nothing further upon it, until the Saturday following, when her son brings me down a pair of the fattest geese I ever cut up for my Sunday’s dinner.  Now, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, wasn’t that doing the thing dacent?”

“Well, well, Docthor,” said Denis, “that was all right; let Mave alone, an’ maybe she’ll be apt to find out a pair that will match Mrs. Hacket’s.  Not that I say it, but she doesn’t like to be outdone in anything.”

“Docthor, I was wishin’ to know, sir,” continued the uncle of the absent candidate, “what the value of a good parish might be.”