“We’re bidden to love all thim that despite--” The nun broke off her quotation abruptly. A low wailing sound from the bowels of the earth beneath them rose through the flags of the floor, and filled the chamber with a wierd and ghostly dying away echo. Mother Agnes sprang to her feet. “’T is the Hostage again!” she cried. “Sister Ellen vowed to me she heard him through the night. Did _you_ hear him just now?” “I heard _it_,” said Kate, simply. The mother superior, upon reflection, seated herself again. “’T is a strange business,” she said, at last. Her shrewd eyes, wandering in a meditative gaze about the chamber, avoided Katie’s face. “’T is twelve years since last we heard him,” she mused aloud, “and that was the night of the storm. ’T is a sign of misfortune to hear him, they say--and the blowing down of the walls that toime was taken be us to fulfill that same. But sure, within the week, The O’Mahoney had gone on his thravels, and pious Cormac O’Daly had taken his place, and the convint prospered more than ever. At laste _that_ was no misfortune.” “Hark to me, Mother Agnes,” said Kate, with emphasis. “You never used to favor the O’Mahonys as well I remimber, but you’re a fair-minded woman and a holy woman, and I challenge ye now to tell me honest: Wasn’t anny wan hair on The O’Mahony’s head worth the whole carcase of Cormac O’Daly? ’T was an evil day for Muirisc whin he sailed away. If the convint has prospered, me word, ’t is what nothing else in Muirisc has done. And laving aside your office as a nun, is it sp’akin well for a place to say that three old women in it are better off, and all the rist have suffered?” “Katie!” admonished the other. “You’ll repint thim words a week hence! To hearken to ye, wan would think yer heart was not in the profession ye’re to make.” The girl gave a scornful, little laugh. “Did I ever pretind it was?” she demanded. “’T is you are the contrary crayture!” sighed the mother superior. “Here now for all these cinturies, through all the storms and wars and confiscations, this holy house has stud firm be the old faith. There ’s not another family in Ireland has kept the mass in its own chapel, wid its own nuns kneeling before it, and never a break or interruption at all. I’ll l’ave it to yer own sinse: Can ye compare the prosperity of a little village, or a hundred of ’em, wid such a glorious and unayqualed riccord as that? Why, girl, ’t is you should be proud beyond measure and thankful that ye’re born and bred and selected to carry on such a grand tradition. To be head of the convint of the O’Mahonys ’t is more historically splindid than to be queen of England.” “But if I come to be the head at all,” retorted Kate, “sure it will be a convint of O’Dalys.” The venerable woman heaved another sigh and looked at the floor in silence. Kate pursued her advantage eagerly.