Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/102

 She patted it, tenderly and affectionately, with a soft and reminiscent caress, so that the priest knew that it was not for anything that package of money might hold for her in a material way, then or afterward, but rather for what it gave back for a moment to her desolated heart. And the priest was glad of that, and thereafter silent. He had had doubts. He would feel better when the money had passed out of his hands, and he sometimes questioned whether it would ever do good in any one's hands. But he had a sense of humor, too, a grim sense in this instance, when he thought of certain political and financial circles, even if he did dust his thin hands carefully with his spotless handkerchief when he laid the money down.

Annie's eyes had filled with the ready tears that welled to their sweeping, black lashes, and trembled there as she raised her eyes to him.

"Ah, Father," she said, "he was so, so good to me, always—and so kind! And see how thoughtful he was—to leave me all this! Oh, Jimmy, my poor Jimmy!"

And she rocked forward, like an old woman, and wept.