“Always? My goodness, no!” said Davy. “Time was once when I thought money was just all and Tommy in this world. My gough, yes, when I was a slip of a lad, didn’t I?” said he, sobering very suddenly. “The father was lost in a gale at the herrings, and the mawther had to fend for the lot of us. They all went off except myself--the sisters and brothers. Poor things, they wasn’t willing to stay with us, and no wonder. But there’s mostly an ould person about every Manx house that sees the young ones out, and the mawther’s father was at us still. Lame though of his legs with the rheumatics, and wake in his intellecs for all. Couldn’t do nothing but lie in by the fire with his bit of a blanket hanging over his head, same as snow atop of a hawthorn bush. Just stirring the peats, and boiling the kettle, and lifting the gorse when there was any fire. The mawther weeded for Jarvis Kewley--sixpence a day dry days, and fourpence all weathers. Middling hard do’s, mate. And when she’d give the ould man his basin of broth he’d be saying, squeaky-like, ‘Give it to the boy, woman; he’s a growing lad?’ ‘Chut! take it, man,’ the mawther would say, and then he’d be whimpering, ‘I’m keeping you long, Liza, I’m keeping you long.’ And there was herself making a noise with her spoon in the bottom of a basin, and there was me grinding my teeth, and swearing to myself like mad, ‘As sure as the living God I’ll be ruch some day.’ And now--” Davy snapped his fingers, laughed boisterously, rolled to his feet, and said shortly, “Where’ve you been to?” “To church--the church with a spire at the end of the parade,” said Lovibond. “St. Thomas’s--I know it,” said Davy. St. Thomas’s was half way up to Castle Mona. The men strolled out at the window, which opened on to the warm, soft turf of the Head, and lay down there with their faces to the sun-lit bay. “Who preached?” said Davy, clasping hands at the back of his head. “A young woman,” said Lovibond. Davy lifted his head out of its socket, “My goodness!” he said. “Well, at all events,” explained Lovi-bond, “it was a girl who preached to _me_. The moment I went into the church I saw her, and I saw nothing else until I came out again.” Davy laughed, “Ay, that’s the way a girl slips in,” said he. “Who was she?” “Nay; I don’t know,” said Lovibond; “but she sat over against me on the opposite side of the aisle, and her face was the only prayer-book I could keep my eyes from wandering from.” “And what was her tex’, mate?” “Beauty, grace, truth, the tenderness of a true heart, the sweetness of a soul that is fresh and pure.” Davy looked up with vast solemnity. “Take care,” said he. “There’s odds of women, sir. They’re like sheep’s broth is women. If there’s a heart and head in them they’re good, and if there isn’t you might as well be supping hot water. Faces isn’t the chronometer to steer your boat to the good ones. Now I’ve seen some you could swear to----.”