In silence they walked down the stairs again. The piano had begun, and "Sir Roger de Coverley" was being thundered forth. At the door they met the Doctor. Larry released Tishy's arm. "If you don't mind," he said to the Doctor, "I think I'll go up to bed. I'm tired." After he had got to his room he shook himself, much as a dog renews its vitality by shaking its ears. Then he poured some water into the basin and washed his hot face, scrubbing his lips with the sponge. Yet, to his infinite annoyance, he seemed still to feel the pressure of Tishy's warm mouth on his. CHAPTER XII It is, or should be, superfluous to say that Miss Frederica Coppinger viewed with disfavour, that was the more poignant for its helplessness, Larry's adoption and assimilation by the Mangan family. "Disastrous!" she said in a tragic voice, to the Rector of Knockceoil parish. "If he were a Protestant it wouldn't matter so much; but, as things are, for _him_ to be thrown among these second-rate, Nationalistic, Roman Catholics--!" The intensity of Miss Coppinger's emotions silenced him. She had indeed beaten her biggest drum, and she knew it. The Rector, the Reverend Charles Fetherston, nodded his head with solemnity, and made a conscientious effort to remember what she was speaking of. He was not much in the habit of attending to what was said to him, finding his own thoughts more interesting than those of his parishioners. The parishioners, being aware of this peculiarity, put it down, very naturally, to eccentricity for which he was rather to be pitied than condemned, and his popularity was in no way abated by it. Mr. Fetherston was unmarried, in age about sixty; tall, stout, red-faced, of good family, a noted woodcock shot and salmon fisher, a carpenter, and an incessant pipe-smoker. These being his leading gifts, it will probably, and with accuracy, be surmised by persons conversant with the Irish Church, that he was a survival of its earliest days, when it was still an avocation suitable for gentlemen, and one in which they could indulge without any taint of professionalism being laid to their charge. He was immensely respected and admired by the poor people of the parish (none of whom were included in his small and well-to-do congregation), the fact that he was what is known as "old stock," giving him a prestige among the poorer Roman Catholics, that they would have denied to St. Peter. He shared with Major Talbot-Lowry the position of consultant in feuds, and relieving officer in distress, and, being rich, liberal, easily bored, and not particularly sympathetic to affliction, he was accustomed to stanch the flow of tears and talk alike, with a form of solace that rarely failed to meet the case, and was always acceptable. With Miss Coppinger, he felt, regretfully, that five shillings could in no way be brought to bear upon her problem, and with an effort he withdrew his mind from a new hinge that he thought of fitting to a