Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/67

Rh of Priscilla’s girlhood. No, she hated men, and rough boys the natty Priscilla must have always shunned, nor could she, with her cleverness, ever have admired the developing youth.

Yes, she hated men and all their sex; she was hardly kind to little boys—they were cruel to her cats, she would say. But the girl babies, how she loved them! There was never a birth in the village where she was not first visitor to the new arrival. And if it was a boy, she would look close into the little red face till he raised his voice and howled. Then she would laugh. "Shout for it and you will get it, my lad; only shout long enough and you will get it." Then she would press a golden pound into his little fist and leave him. But if it was a girl, she would take it in her arms, and if it was crying it would stop that minute. She would drop a tear upon it, perhaps, and whisper things into its little unconscious ears. When she was leaving she would put a guinea into its hands, with the words, "For your sad heart, my girl, for your sad heart." So the baby would be added to her list of loves.

But she liked best the lovelorn maidens who