“I must preach wholesome doctrine, my young friends,” broke in the vicar. “Now that we have dined well, I would like to say aword on abstinence.” “You mean to take no coffee, doctor, then?” asked Lucy, laughing. “That I do, my sweet child,--coffee and a pipe, too, for I know you are tolerant of tobacco.” “I hope she is,” said Tom, “or she 'd have a poor time of it in the house with me.” “I 'll put no coercion upon my tastes on this occasion, for I 'll take a stroll through the ruins, and leave you to your wine,” said she, rising. They protested, in a mass, against her going. “We cannot lock the door, Lucy, _de facto_,” said Sir Brook, “but we do it figuratively.” “And in that case I make my escape by the window,” said she, springing through an old lancet-shaped orifice in the Abbey wall. “There goes down the sun and leaves us but a gray twilight,” said Sir Brook, mournfully, as he looked after her. “If there were only enough beauty on earth, I verily believe we might dispense with parsons.” “Push me over the bird's-eye, and let me nourish myself till your millennium comes,” said the vicar. “What a charming girl she is! her very beauty fades away before the graceful attraction of her manner!” whispered Sir Brook to the doctor. “Oh, if you but knew her as I do! If you but knew how, sacrificing all the springtime of her bright youth, she has never had a thought save to make herself the companion of her poor father,--a sad, depressed, sorrow-struck man, only rescued from despair by that companionship! I tell you, sir, there is more courage in submitting one's self to the nature of another than in facing a battery.” Sir Brook grasped the parson's hand and shook it cordially. The action spoke more than any words. “And the brother, doctor,--what say you of the brother?” whispered he. “One of those that the old adage says 'either makes a spoon or spoils the horn.' That 's Master Tom there.” Low as the words were uttered, they caught the sharp ears of him they spoke of, and with a laughing eye he cried out, “What 's that evil prediction you 're uttering about me, doctor?” “I am just telling Sir Brook here that it's pure head or tail how you turn out. There's stuff in you to make a hero, but it's just as likely you 'll stop short at a highwayman.” “I think I could guess which of the two would best suit the age we live in,” said Tom, gayly. “Are we to have another bottle of that Madeira, for I suspect I see the doctor putting up the corkscrew?” “You are to have no more wine than what's before you till you land me at the quay of Killaloe. When temperance means safety as well as forbearance, it's one of the first of virtues.” The vicar, indeed, soon grew impatient to depart. Fine as the evening was then, it might change. There was a feeling, too, not of damp, but chilliness; at all events, he was averse to being on the water late; and as he was the great promoter of these little convivial gatherings, his word was law.