Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/91

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time. He did not belong to the preaching orders. But, as he pondered in his wise old head, he shrewdly guessed that the careless Jimmy would hardly have made provision against anything so far from his thoughts as death, and he perceived that if Annie were to be protected from a future with which she, alone and unaided, would hardly have the capacity to deal, some one must act.

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