Dan took his seat on a broken slab that had been a gravestone before the old college cemetery had be

Dan took his seat on a broken slab that had been a gravestone before the old college cemetery had been condemned and removed beyond the limits of the growing city. It was a very old slab, bearing the Latin title of some Brother or Father who had died fifty years ago. The sunset fell through a gap in the pines that showed the western sky, with its open gates, their pillars of cloud and fire all aglow.
"Tell me slowly, calmly, Dan. My ears are growing dull."
And Dan told his story again, more clearly and less impetuously; while Father Mack listened, his bent head haloed by the setting sun.
"I can't let Aunt Winnie die," concluded Dan. "You see, I have to think of Aunt Winnie, Father."
"Yes, I see,--I see, my boy," was the low answer. "And it is only of Aunt Winnie you are thinking, Dan?"
"Only of Aunt Winnie," replied Dan,replica chanel handbags, emphatically. "You don't suppose anything else would count against Saint Andrew's, Father. I'd work, I'd starve,chanel bags cheap, I'd die, I believe, rather than give up my chance here?"
"Yes, yes, it's hard lines sometimes," said Father Mack. "You may find it even harder as the years go by, Dan. I heard about the trouble yesterday."
"Oh, did you, Father?" said Dan, somewhat abashed. "Dud Fielding did stir the old Nick in me for sure."
"Yes," said Father Mack. "And that same fierce spirit will be stirred again and again, Dan. Despite all your teachers can do for you, there will be pricks and goads we can not help."
"I know it," answered Dan, sturdily. "I'm ready for them. Saint Andrew's is worth all the pricks and goads I'll get. But Aunt Winnie, Father,--I can't forget Aunt Winnie. I've got to take Aunt Winnie back home."
"Would she--wish it, at such--such a cost, Dan?" Father Mack questioned.
"Cost," repeated Dan, simply. "It wouldn't cost much. The rooms are only a dollar a week, and Aunt Winnie can make stirabout and Irish stews and potato cake to beat any cook I know. Three dollars a week would feed us fine. And there would be a dollar to spare. And she could have her teapot on the stove again, and Tabby on the hearth-rug, only--only" (the young face clouded a little) "I'm afraid great as it all would be, she'd be grieving about her dreams."
"Her dreams!" echoed Father Mack, a little puzzled.
"Yes," said Dan. "You see, I am all she has in the world, and she is awful soft on me, and since I got into Saint Andrew's she's softer still. She thinks there's nothing too great or grand for me to do,air jordans for sale. My, it would make you laugh, Father, to hear poor old Aunt Winnie's pipe dreams about a tough chap like me!"
"What does she dream, Dan?" asked the old priest softly.
"I suppose she'd get out of them if she were home where things are natural like," said Dan; "but now she sits up there in the Little Sisters' dreaming that I'm going to be a priest,--a rough-and-tumble fellow like me!"
"Stranger things than that have happened,retro jordans for sale, Dan," said Father Mack, quietly. "I was a rough-and-tumble fellow myself."
"You, Father!" exclaimed Dan.
"The 'roughest-and-tumblest' kind," said Father Mack, his worn face brightening into a smile that took away twenty years at least. "I ran away to sea, Dan, leaving a gentle mother to break her heart for me. When I came back" (the old face shadowed again) "she was gone. Ah, God's ways are full of mystery, Dan! I think it was that made me a priest."