it up then and there; and that is always a relief in this intricate world. Maggie therefore did not bother him much; she went to him only on plain issues; and he respected and liked her accordingly.
“Good morning, my child,” he said in his loud, breezy voice, as he came in to find her in his hideous little sitting room. “I hope you don’t mind the smell of tobacco-smoke.”
The room indeed reeked; he had started a cigar, according to rule, as the clock struck twelve, and had left it just now upon a stump outside when his housekeeper had come to announce a visitor.
“Not in the least, thanks, father. … May I sit down? It’s rather a long business, I’m afraid.”
The priest pulled out an armchair covered with horsehair and an antimacassar.
“Sit down, my child.”
Then he sat down himself, opposite her, in his trousers at once tight and baggy, with his rather large boots cocked one over the other, and his genial red face smiling at her.
“Now then,” he said.
“It’s not about myself, father,” she began rather hurriedly. “It’s about Laurie Baxter. May I begin at the beginning?”
He nodded. He was not sorry to hear something about this boy, whom he didn’t like at all, but for whom he knew himself at least partly responsible. The English were bad enough, but English converts were indescribably trying; and Laurie had been on his mind lately, he scarcely knew why.