if the nuns have been particularly amiable and hospitable he accepts. In such cases he must have a new set of conferences, for nuns have long memories, and will look up maliciously if he drops into a passage of one of his former sermons. Besides receiving the usual five or ten pounds, the priest can always rely upon a warm welcome and tender and graceful hospitality from the good sisters during his residence in their convent; and as the convent is very frequently in a pretty watering-place or other desirable locality, it is not surprising that the work is much appreciated.
Then there are minor functions which bring grist to the conventual mill and afford the friars some diversion from the dreary monotony of home life. The secular clergy take annual holidays, and hire a friar at one pound per Sunday to conduct their services for a few weeks; in fact our friary at Manchester took up the work with such zeal (for its missionaries were not appreciated) that it earned the title of the ‘Seraphic Cab-stand.’ Special sermons, also, are frequently asked, and chaplaincies are sometimes offered to the friars. A neighbouring convent will always demand their services, and even country families often prefer to bring a friar down every Sunday for a couple of guineas than to have a chaplain haunting the premises all the week.
With so many external attractions of a lucrative and congenial character the friars are sometimes
