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My aunt fingered

the stem of her wine-glass before sipping a little.

"Did he... peacefully?" she asked.

"Oh, quite peacefully, ma'am," said Eliza. "You couldn't tell when

the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be

praised."

"And everything...?"

"Father O'Rourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him and

prepared him and all."

"He knew then?"

"He was quite resigned."

"He looks quite resigned," said my aunt.

"That's what the woman we had in to wash him said. She said he

just looked as if he was asleep, he looked that peaceful and

resigned. No one would think he'd make such a beautiful corpse."

"Yes, indeed," said my aunt.

She sipped a little more from her glass and said:

"Well, Miss Flynn, at any rate it must be a great comfort for you to

know that you did all you could for him. You were both very kind

to him, I must say."

Eliza smoothed her dress over her knees.

"Ah, poor James!" she said. "God knows we done all we could, as

poor as we are--we wouldn't see him want anything while he was

in it."

Nannie had leaned her head against the sofa-pillow and seemed

about to fall asleep.

"There's poor Nannie," said Eliza, looking at her, "she's wore out.

All the work we had, she and me, getting in the woman to wash

him and then laying him out and then the coffin and then arranging

about the Mass in the chapel. Only for Father O'Rourke I don't

know what we'd done at all. It was him brought us all them flowers

and them two candlesticks out of the chapel and wrote out the

notice for the Freeman's General and took charge of all the papers

for the cemetery and poor James's insurance."

"Wasn't that good of him?" said my aunt

Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

"Ah, there's no friends like the old friends," she said, "when all is

said and done, no friends that a body can trust."

"Indeed, that's true," said my aunt. "And I'm sure now that he's

gone to his eternal reward he won't forget you and all your

kindness to him."

"Ah, poor James!" said Eliza. "He was no great trouble to us. You

wouldn't hear him in the house any more than now. Still, I know

he's gone and all to that...."

"It's when it's all over that you'll miss him," said my aunt.

"I know that," said Eliza. "I won't be bringing him in his cup of

beef-tea any me, nor you, ma'am, sending him his snuff. Ah, poor

James!"

She stopped, as if she were communing with the past and then said

shrewdly:

"Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him

latterly. Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there I'd find him

with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his

mouth open."

She laid a finger against her nose and frowned: then she continued:

"But still and all he kept on saying that before the summer was

over he'd go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house

again where we were all born down in Irishtown and take me and

Nannie with him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled

carriages that makes no noise that Father O'Rourke told him about,

them with the rheumatic wheels, for the day cheap--he said, at

Johnny Rush's over the way there and drive out the three of us

together of a Sunday evening. He had his mind set on that.... Poor

James!"

"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" said my aunt.

Eliza took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then

she put it back again in her pocket and gazed into the empty grate

for some time without speaking.

"He was too scrupulous always," she said. "The duties of the

priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you might

say, crossed."

"Yes," said my aunt. "He was a disappointed man. You could see

that."

A silence took possession of the little room and, under cover of it,

I approached the table and tasted my sherry and then returned

quietly to my chair in the comer. Eliza seemed to have fallen into a

deep revery. We waited respectfully for her to break the silence:

and after a long pause she said slowly:

"It was that chalice he broke.... That was the beginning of it. Of

course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean.

But still.... They say it was the boy's fault.