My feelings continued to vary: I was sometimes fearful, and sometimes so courageous as to think seriously of going into the Recollet church during mass, with my child in my arms, and calling upon the priest to own it. And this I am confident I should have done, but for the persuasions used to prevent me. [Footnote: I did not make up my mind (so far as I remember), publicly to proclaim who was the father of my child, unless required to do so, until I learnt that Father Phelan had denied it.] CHAPTER XXIX. A Milkman--An Irishwoman--Difficulty in having my Affidavit taken--Legal objection to it when taken. Another person who expressed a strong wish to see me, was an Irish milkman. He had heard, what seemed to have been pretty generally reported, that I blamed none but the Irish priests. He put the question, whether it was a fact that I accused nobody but Father Phelan. I told him that it was not so; and this pleased him so well, that he told me if I would stay in Montreal, I should have milk for myself and my child as long as I lived. It is well known that strong antipathies have long existed between the French and Irish Catholics in the city. The next day the poor Irishman returned, but in a very different state of mind. He was present at church in the morning, he said, when Father Phelan told the congregation that the nun of whom he had spoken before, had gone to court and accused him; and that he, by the power he possessed, had struck her powerless as she stood before the judge, so that she sunk helpless on the floor. He expressed, by the motion of his hands, the unresisting manner in which she had sunk under the mysterious influence, and declared that she would have died on the spot, but that he had chosen to keep her alive that she might retract her false accusion. This, he said, she did, most humbly, before the court; acknowledging that she had been paid a hundred pounds as a bribe. The first words of the poor milkman, on revisiting me, therefore, were like these: "That's to show you what power the priest has! Didn't he give it to you in the court? It is to be hoped you will leave the city now." He then stated what he had heard Father Phelan say, and expressed his entire conviction of its truth, and the extreme joy he felt on discovering, as he supposed he had, that his own priest was innocent, and had gained such a triumph over me.