‘She teaches girls to make lace, and wonderful work they do. She is perfectly happy. I think her face is the sweetest and most beautiful thing I have ever seen. There is not a line on it of care or of fretfulness. It seems to me as if her whole life might be described as a quiet smile. I always feel better by the mere recollection of her face for a long time after I have visited her. Oh, I know it wouldn’t do for me. I couldn’t stand it for a week. I should go mad with the quiet restraint of it all. But my sister is happy. I can’t forget that. I suppose she has a vocation.’ ‘Vocation,’ said Hyacinth thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I can understand how that would make all the difference. But how many of them have the vocation?’ ‘Don’t you think vocation might be learnt? I mean mightn’t one grow into it, if one wished to very much, and if the life was constantly before one’s eyes, beautiful and calm?’ It was almost the same thought which Timothy Halloran had suggested. Mary O’Dwyer spoke of growing into vocation, Tim of the working of it up. Was there any difference except a verbal one? On another occasion he spoke to Dr. Henry about the position of the Church of Ireland in the country. ‘We have proved,’ said the professor, ‘that the Roman claims have no support in Scripture, history, or reason. Our books remain unanswered, because they are unanswerable. We can do no more.’ ‘We might offer the Irish people a Church which they could join,’ said Hyacinth. ‘We do. We offer them the Church of St. Patrick, the ancient, historic Church of Ireland. We offer them the two Sacraments of the Gospel, administered by priests duly ordained at the hands of an Episcopate which goes back in an unbroken line to the Apostles. We present them the three great creeds for their assent. We use a liturgy that is at once ancient and pure. The Church of Ireland has all this, is beyond dispute a branch of the great Catholic Church of Christ.’ ‘It may be all you say,’ said Hyacinth, ‘but it is not national. In sentiment and sympathy it is English and not Irish.’ ‘I know what you mean,’ said Dr. Henry. ‘I think I understand how you feel, but I cannot consent to the conclusion you want to draw. There is no real meaning in the cry for nationality. It is a sentiment, a fashion, and will pass. Even if it were genuine and enduring, I hold it to be better for Ireland to be an integral part of a great Empire than a contemptible and helpless item among the nations of the world, a prey to the intrigues of ambitious foreign statesmen.’ Hyacinth sighed and turned to go, but Dr. Henry laid a hand upon his shoulder and detained him.