"Let yer?" said Danny with conviction. ""Tain't lettin' or not lettin'. If yer eats meat on a Friday yer'll go to 'ell; and so I tells yer straight, No. 18," with a stern eye on his neighbor's plate, which was nearly empty.

"But I ain't a Cawth'lick," protested No. 18. "Tain't the same for me, o' course."

Danny considered this.

"Wot's right for me's right for you," was his conclusion, "must be; we ain't made diff'runt."

"Dunno 'bout that," returned No. 18, "but I never 'eard nothin' about not eatin' meat on a Friday; so it can't be for me, 'cos I don't know it, see?"

"Yer knows it now," said Danny. "Ain't I just told yer? And I did 'ear of a man," he continued reflectively, "as eat a pound and a quarter o' steak in one mouthful on a Friday, and he was choked; and serve 'im right."

"Must 'a been off his chump," No. 18 opined. "Any fool'd know as 'e couldn't do that. It's a yarn any way; and I don't believe it."

"It's as true as true," cried Danny. "Mr. Green, as lives next door to us, told Tommy and Tommy told me; and 'e knew the man, Mr. Green did. And yer'd best look out for yerself, No. 18, now yer knows."

But No. 18 was only amused by Danny's earnestness and conviction; and held fast to his own opinion that the matter did not concern him. They discussed the question often during the following days; and Danny tried his utmost to extract a promise of conformity to his own stern rule from this young man who was so kind and so companionable.

When the third Friday came round, Danny, watching to see what his friend would do, could hardly eat his own vegetables. And No. 18, feeling Danny's eager gaze upon him, turned himself round in his bed so as to interpose his body between his plate and Danny's eyes.

"Yer eatin' it, I know yer are!" he exclaimed vexedly. "And I told yer, No. 18."

"No, I ain't"; said No. 18 soothingly. "I'm only eating what you are."

"Ye're a liar," observed Danny, with tears in his eyes but no anger in his voice. He was too grieved to feel angry; his remark was only the strongest form of contradiction he knew.

"Ye're rum little beggar," remarked No. 18, turning back again, but still hiding his empty plate. "Wot's it matter to you if I do eat meat and get damned?" There was genuine surprise in his tone.

But it was quite beyond Danny's power and Danny's vocabulary to explain; so the little chap only brushed the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand and said: "Yer a bloomin' ass, that's wot you are," in impatience that his friend could not understand without being told. His own counsel of perfection seemed such a simple thing to him, but how could he be content if his friend were not safe?

The battle continued throughout the remainder of No. 18's stay in the ward; and the young man continued to eat his Friday dinner under difficulties and the bedclothes. But there came a day when he left cured; and he and Danny parted with few words and real regret.

On the first visiting day after this, while Mrs. Davis herself was sitting beside her small son, a tall young man came into the ward carrying a large brown paper parcel.

"Hullo," cried Danny, "if 'ere ain't No. 18 come back! Wot's 'e a-doin' of, I wonder?"

At that moment he was engaged in satisfying the Ward Sister that his parcel contained no contraband in the way of unripe plums or chalk sweetmeats. This done he came up to

Danny.

"Wot cheer, Danny ?" said he. "Not up yet? You're awearing out that bed and no error. 'Ow's Friday a comin'

on ?"

Danny grinned and nodded delightedly.

"This 'ere's my mother," he said. In Danny's circles it is the women who are presented, half apologetically, to the notice of the superior sex, and, as it happened, Mrs. Davis had not before been able to visit Danny while he had been in hospital.

No. 18 was quite polite; he nodded affably and said: "Good day, mum." Then he planted his parcel on the bed. "This 'ere's for you, Danny; thought yer'd like sommat to look at, now yer ain't got me. We was reg'lar pals, Danny and me," he explained to Mrs. Davis. "E's a queer kid, is Danny; couldn't a-bear me to eat no meat on a Friday. Is that yer way o' thinking, too, mum ?"

And then he told Mrs. Davis the story. Danny was too

excited to listen much. He had never had a parcel before in his life; and this one contained a Noah's Ark (which No. 18 explained was "religious" and therefore appropriate), a twobladed knife, a toy pistol with a box of caps, and a packet of chocolate, which No. 18's experience of Ward Sisters had taught him was likely to pass muster.

Danny held up one thing after another for his mother's admiring inspection; and finally lay back with a long sigh of supreme content to regard his treasure with shining eyes.

"I calls it real good-natured of yer, mister," said his mother. "Say thank yer, Danny."

"E don't want to thank me, Danny don't," interposed No. 18 hastily. "'Im and me's pals. 'E's a brick, ain't yer, Danny boy? Stands by a pal, 'e does, and gives 'im the best 'e's got. Same 'ere."

66

And the nurses they all sez the same, they never seen such a good boy," was Mrs. Davis' triumphant summing up. "No. 18 must be a good sort, too," said I.

"Yes"; asserted Mrs. Davis; "so grateful like. I dessay Danny done 'im good; but they ain't all got the sense to know it."

"Danny doesn't hide his colors," I observed.

"'Is father'd 'ave somethin' to say, if 'e did," returned Mrs. Davis, "and me too."

I did not doubt the truth of the last remark.

"I wish every boy had such a good home," I said with much sincerity, and left Mrs. Davis beaming.

THE SOWER.

BY KATHERINE BRÉGY.

"Behold a sower went forth to sow."

Scarce has the Angel of the Dawn unfurl'd

His wings, and rais'd aloft his torch of light,
When swift the Sower hastens to his toil,

Gladsome and hopeful, in strong manhood's might.

Small earnest of a whole world's nutriment—
That seed he bears, and scatters everywhere!
And men are sleeping on, and few will rise
To ease his load; for ever his the care !

Bleak blows the wind and rugged are the ways;
The paths he treads are chok'd by many a thorn.
But toward the sunset sky his face is set-
He pauses not, though men and ravens warn.

What sees he, that he faints not in dismay,
In this broad field where laborers are so few?
Lo! in the valley there, a blade springs up,
And distant hills are blossoming white to view!

Life's day is brief to every son of man,

And scarcely may one hand both sow and reap;
Night's shroud enwraps the world and the world's work,
When, spent at last, the Sower sinks in sleep.

But in those Courts above, where sun nor moon
Nor dawn hath place-there, on his eyes oppress'd-
From light of God's own smile, into his dreams.
Breaks the full glory of that Vision Bless'd!

BEFORE CROMWELL CAME TO IRELAND.

BY WILLIAM F. DENNEHY.

THE latest volume of State Papers relating to Ireland which has been issued by the English Rolls Commission-so styled because its ex officio President is the judicial functionary known as the Master of the Rolls-contains many docu ments casting much light on the state of religion in that country, in the earlier years of the reign of Charles I. On the 15th of February, 1624, the Secretary of State wrote to the Irish Lord Deputy, by direction of the King, who was already beginning to realize that the turbulence of his English Puritan subjects made it desirable to secure the friendship of the people of Catholic Ireland. In this missive it was pointed out that, so far as Papists were concerned, it was "his Majesty's gracious pleasure to suspend the execution of the penal laws against them for the use of their consciences in private houses, or for not coming to church." It was, however, deemed needful to make plain that the measure of royal toleration was limited and, accordingly, it was intimated that the Lord Deputy must "depress and reform" anything in the nature of "insolencies or tumultuous and inordinate assemblies, or innovation by erecting of religious houses, holding of public or private conventions which may be dangerous to the State, scandalous, or conduce to novelty and alteration." The impression most likely to be created in the minds of those who study the contents of the volume now under notice, will be one of wonder that, despite the persecutions of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and James I.-notwithstanding the brief respite accorded during the reign of Queen Mary-the unfortunate Catholics of Ireland retained so much in the nature of ecclesiastical and educational organization as it is made clear they did.

Despite the evident desire of King Charles to conciliate his Irish Catholic subjects, the utmost efforts of the dominant Eng

*Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland preserved in the Public Record Office. Edited by Robert Pentland Mahaffy, B.A. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.