"I don't want to take away your appetite," I said, refusing the chair which he proffered; "but I am for the first time genuinely angry with you. I suppose you had your reasons for it; but you ought to know that a parish priest has, by every law, natural and canonical, the right to know about his sick or distressed poor people, and that a curate has no right to be keeping these things a secret from him. Reticence and secretiveness are excellent things in their way; but this too may be overdone. I have just been down to Mrs. Moylan's to learn for the first time that her child has been sick for nearly two months. You knew it and you never told me. Now, I'll insist for the future that a sick-call book shall be kept in the sacristy, and that the name of every patient, in the parish shall be entered there. Good evening." He flushed up, but said nothing. I passed the chapel door and went in straight up to the altar of the Blessed Virgin. "Now," I said, "you've carried this entirely too far. Is this the return I've got for all I've done for you for the past fifty years? Think of all the Rosaries I said for you, all the Masses I offered for you, all the May devotions I established for you, all the Brown Scapulars I gave for you--all--all--and this is your return; and she your own child, that I thought was so like you. 'Pon my word, I think I'll blow out that lamp and never light it again." The mild, brown eyes looked down on me calmly, and then that queer thing called Conscience, that jumps up like a jack-in-the-box when you least expect it, started at me and began:-- "What folly is this, Father Dan? Do you think you know more than God and His Blessed Mother? Do you? Your head is so turned with heathen vanity that you think you ought to get the reins of the universe into your hands. Here's your classics, and your Spinoza, and your Cappadocians, and your book-writing, and all your castles in the air, and your little children lying on their sick-beds and you knowing nothing about it. Look sharp, old man, your time is at hand, and think what the Judge may do with you when His hand presses so tightly on His little children." I sat down to my dinner, but couldn't touch a bit. It was a nice little dinner, too,--a little roast chicken and a scrap of bacon and some nice floury potatoes. No use. The thought of that child would come before me, and her piteous cry: "Oh, don't, dear Lord, don't!" and, "Sure you won't let Him, Mother; you said you wouldn't;" and with a great big lump in my throat I pushed aside the plate and went over to the darkening window. After a time Hannah came in, looked at the dishes, and looked at me. "Was there anything wrong with the chicken?" she said, thinking I was reflecting on her cookery. "No, Hannah, 't was all right; but I'm not in a humor for eating." She was surprised. So was I. It was the first time for many years that I bolted. Thank God, a good appetite and His Divine Grace have never deserted me.