When I had finished we knelt down before our chairs. My father prayed aloud, and I stared out of the window, and tried to decide whither I should take the Dales. Between the sentences my father, as usual, kept crossing and uncrossing his feet, and scraping them together, as if he were trying to remove a tight pair of slippers. It seemed odd to me that he could pray so earnestly and at the same time use such artificial language, crammed with “thees” and “thous,” and “hearests” and “doests.” Before he had reached “Amen” I was on my feet, dusting the knees of my trousers. CHAPTER IX A quarter of an hour later, as I walked up to Derryaghy, Willie Breen, the grocer’s son, a little boy of ten or eleven, ran out from the shop, and, after gazing carefully up and down the road, slipped a small piece of paper into my hand. One side of this paper was painted black; on the other a single word, “Friday,” was printed in red ink. I put it in my pocket and walked on without making any sign or uttering a word, which was the proper etiquette to observe under these peculiar circumstances; and in equal silence Willie returned to the shop. When I reached the house, though I had been intending all along to ask for Katherine, I suddenly asked for Gerald instead. “Gerald isn’t down yet,” Mrs. Carroll informed me, coming into the hall from the dining-room. “Probably he’s not even out of bed. Go up and tell him to hurry. He’s in the room next yours. Katherine is seeing about your lunch.” Rather reluctantly I went up to Gerald’s room and tapped at his door. “Come in,” he said, sleepily. He was indeed still in bed, and, in spite of the fact of our appointment, did not seem in any hurry to get out of it. “Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed. “Good-morning.” I felt uncomfortable, for I was sure he would think it queer my coming into his room when I hardly knew him. “Good-morning,” I answered, trying to imitate the tone he had used. “I was told to tell you to hurry.” He sat up and yawned. “It’s late, I suppose,” he murmured. “They hadn’t sense enough to send me up my breakfast.” “Do you always have breakfast in your room?” I asked. He looked out of the window as if I did not interest him. “No,” he answered, after a perceptible pause, “but I have it when I want to.”