Long ago might Father Daugherty have celebrated his silver jubilee as pastor of St. Patrick’s, but he was not the man for celebrations. The parish was one big family to him, and he knew the joys and sorrows, the little hopes and pathetic ambitions of every one in it. The sorrows of his children he bore in his own heart; they had wrought their complex and tragic tale in his face. The joys he left them to taste alone; but he found too much sorrow to have time for joy. During all those years, he had given himself unsparingly; if it was all he had to give, it was the most precious thing he could have given--a daily sacrifice that exhausted a temperament keenly sensitive and sympathetic. So he had grown old and white before his time. Many a man had he kept straight when times were hard and the right to work denied him; many a widow had he saved from the wiles of the claim-agent. The corporations and the lawyers hated him. And so, on Monday morning, the clerks of the probate court had scarcely had time to yawn reluctantly before beginning a new week’s work, when Father Daugherty appeared to file Annie’s waiver of her own right to be appointed administratrix of the estate of James Tiernan, deceased, with an application for the appointment, instead, of Francis Daugherty as administrator. “He must keep a set of blanks,” whispered one clerk to another. As Father Daugherty went about his inventory, he saw that the result would be what he had expected. Jimmy had left no estate, no insurance, nothing but the saloon. And that, with Jimmy dead, was nothing, for its value lay all in Jimmy’s personality and the importance of his position in politics. The fixtures would hardly pay for the burying of him. When the debts the law prefers had been paid, Annie would have scarce a penny. The world might preserve a respectful and sympathetic attitude during the few exciting days when it was paying its last conventional tributes to the dead man, but it kept itemized accounts meanwhile, and it could not long pretend to have forgotten material things. It would present its bills, and they must be paid. Annie would have hardly a cent to meet them with. And Father Daugherty knew, even if Annie did not know, what the world would do then.