Quigley

“ But, apparently, it was not a success, for on an evening early in April Miss Quigley was discovered in tears by Mr. Fergus, who had dropped in for an extra cheroot and a chat.
"Business has been so bad," sighed Miss Quigley, when pressed to explain her trouble. "I'm sure I don't know what I shall do. Everyone wants their money, and the rent is due next month." ”

“ Fergus left the shop with his twenty pounds in his pocket, and, meeting an old friend on the street, said:
"Look here, my boy, if you're going in to see Miss Quigley, mind your eyesight!"
"Why? Has she knocked over a jar of snuff?"
"No; but she's got on new clothes and a new and gorgeous bonnet!"
"High time!"
"Yes, it is high time she had a chance. She has had a little money left her, it appears, and trade is improving daily. But, go in, if only to see the bonnet. It's great!"
And she did not marry William, although he journeyed North and begged her to do so. ”

“ Miss Quigley smiled sadly. "I suppose time does fly—for some people. Thank you for this beautiful calendar."
"Ye're welcome, ye're welcome!... Eh, did ye notice if I took the len' o' a match, ma'am?"
"I did not, Mr. McHardy. But help yourself."
"Thank ye kindly. Mornin'!" And the greengrocer departed.
Miss Quigley spread the calendar for 1882 on the counter, and with pen and ink drew a heavy circle round the "13" in the square devoted to the days of April. ”

“ But Miss Quigley's window was duller than most of the tobacconists' windows of its time, and had it not been for a little band of regular customers Miss Quigley's trade must have been even duller than her window. Happily, gentlemen were more regular in their habits, bad and good, two decades ago than they are today. Advertisements caught their eyes without capturing their souls. One could buy without having previously been bought; one could sell without having first sold oneself. ”

“ It has been already suggested that Miss Quigley wore an old bonnet, and now it may be added that never, since she opened the shop for the first time nine years before, had she been seen in any other bonnet. During that period the bonnet may have undergone minor structural alterations, but at the time to which I now refer it was a rusty wreck from whence now and then a black bead would drop, as if unable to hang on any longer. Still, there were left beads sufficient to make a faint sound when she bowed over the counter to greet or to speed a customer. ”

“ How Miss Adelaide Quigley—she was modest A. Quigley on her signboard—came to be a tobacconist had been explained by several of her older customers in several ways; but the real reason was known only to herself, and she was a woman who could keep a secret. After all, most women can keep secrets—about themselves. ”

“ The young man's complete victory over Quigley made his reputation throughout Diamond Gully. Pete Quigley had two or three hard-won battles to his credit, and it was thought there was no man on the field so hard to handle, with the exception of Ben Kyley, whose showing against a professional of Bendigo's calibre set him on a plane above the mere amateur. Pete confessed himself beaten without equivocation.
'I ain't got any patience with this blanky new fangled style o' fightin',' he said. 'A man ought to toe the scratch an' take his gruel like a man. ”

“ At length he approaches an old three-story, red, frame-built house, which, from its shattered and dilapidated windows, at first seemed to be deserted, but which, from the description left by a messenger with his domestic in the forenoon, he could not doubt was the place where he heard the emigrant widow lay at the point of death.
"Is this where the sick woman is?" said he to an old woman who opened the door.
"Yes, your reverence," answered Mrs. Doherty, at once recognizing the priest; "and thank God you are come. The Lord never deserts his own, praise be to his holy name." ”

“ Presently she rose and went to a wall-press on the other side of the fire-place, took a thin black booklet from it and returned to her seat.
"It's silly of me," she said to herself, as she opened the booklet—her bank-book. "I can't make it more by looking at it.... And it isn't enough—not nearly enough. And how—oh, dear "God! how am I to make it enough in less than four months? How?" Miss Quigley wept silently for the next few minutes. Then she got up, put the book back in the press, sniffed and wiped her eyes.
"I must have a cup of tea," she murmured.
III
"Certainly, madam!" ”

“ Satisfied that the foundation of Quigley's brand had been the CL, Johnny had to discover if Logan's cattle still were being taken to swell the Quigley herds. Logan's inaction and his easy-going way of running his ranch jarred Johnny, for the foreman had confessed that for the last few years the natural increase, figured in the fall roundups, had not tallied with the number of calves branded each preceding spring. ”

“ People who ran quickly to the door were in time to see a knot of youths fall confusedly out of the house over the way—the Quigleys'—obviously, to judge by their subsequent proceedings, for the purpose of continuing a scuffle with ampler elbow room. But it was only for a very brief space that their wrestling and skirmishing among the puddles held anybody's attention. ”

“ Quigley smiled patronizingly. "Findin' only a few won't mean nothin', except that he's driven off th' rest every time he has got a few together, an' sold 'em. Now if you was to take that notebook that's stickin' out of yore pocket, an' write in it some words an' figgers showin' that he's sold so many cows, an' what he got for 'em each time, it might help. We'll know when Logan's due, an' we can drop that book where he'll find it. You never want to kill anythin' till yo're shore it ain't goin' to be useful. ”

“ Fergus further benefited her by speaking quietly to a number of his friends who, although they could not or would not lend money, did the next best thing in relieving her of a large portion of her stock for cash.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure I'll manage now," she replied to the kindly inquiries of these customers, who noticed a new light in her eyes and a general briskness in her manner and methods, and said to one another: "It's worth while doing something to help a decent woman like her."
On the forenoon of the thirteenth of April Miss Quigley received a telegram:
Free at last! Waiting for you. ”

“ Go the limit. Front page stuff. Don't ask any questions. You've just time to make the first edition.”
A second later he shouted, “Boy! Here, quick! Jump up to the composing room and tell them to put the shipwreck story inside and save a column on the front page for the—for the Quigley story. Hurry!”
He drew toward him a clean sheet of copy paper, and in his big careful hand wrote:
Editor's Son Kills Self
To Escape Arrest
Marcus Quigley Jr. Stole $49,000 to Aid Woman and Ended Life When Cornered
Then he slumped over on his desk and buried his face in his folded arms. ”

“ Quigley watched him until he rode out of sight beyond the canyon, and turned toward his outfit, shaking his head. "He's so all-fired set on it that I'm gettin' a little restless myself. Jim ain't no fool; an' he don't often shy at a shadow. It won't do us no harm, anyhow; an' we can take turns at it. I'll start it off by takin' one side tomorrow, an' Holbrook can take th' other. Later on we'll figger it out an' arrange th' shifts. ”

“ In Ireland, that crime deserved hanging as a punishment; and I do not know what I would do to any body I would detect in opening my letters, and pilfering my secrets," said he, raising himself up.
"O, my dear Paul," said the old maid, perceiving her imprudence, "I only guessed at the contents of your letters. We Yankees are great at guessing, you know. Be silent; shut up, my good fellow," she added, going over to the window. "What crowd is that there below on the road?" ”

“ It was infamous in him, they now say, to have your letters 'burked' in the post office, as it appears from Amanda, who has turned informer on the parson, because he did not marry her after his first wife's death. Before this ye were paupers, Irish, and Papists; now, you and your sister and brothers are noble and likely young people."
"O Murty," said Paul, "I can see the hand of God in all this. Where I have lived for the last three years, several families, together with my friend and former employer, Mr. Clarke, have been converted. The very minister, Mr. Strongly, has embraced the true faith ”

“ Knicks," said he, "there is nothin' like religion. Before I got religion, and jined the church, I didn't have any knowledge of God. I used to pity these emigrants, seeing them poor and pale looking as death; but now, sir, I reads my Bible, and finds that the Lord must not regard nor love these Papists, wher'n he lets them run down so. The word of life is great."
"Wal, I do not know. I care not a straw about any church; but my old mother used to teach us, when children, that poverty and crosses were no sign of the Lord's displeasure ”

“ O Heirna Dioa."
"Yes, and the snow is falling in mountains; the roads will be blocked up, and hills and hollows will be on a level in the morning."
"God help every poor Christian that is out to-night," said Mrs. Doherty. "I hope the Lord will save his reverence from all harm."
"Amen!" answered Norry. "He will have a hard night of it. Had he far to go?"
"He had, agra, forty miles out in Vermont; but sure he could not refuse going. The woman is just dying; and besides, she is a Protestant, who wants to die in the faith." ”

“ There was a complete suspension of the ordinary occupations on the farm of Gulvert for near ten days, owing to the trials with which his family was visited. The wife was still confined to her room, and continually threatening her husband with the divorce, who, on his part, had no heart to conduct the necessary work of his farm, he felt so dispirited at the loss of his team and of the money out of which "his converts" had tricked him. Add to this that there were very ugly rumors going the round of the neighborhood in reference to the ill usage the little Irish orphan met with. ”

“ When Father O'Shane called at the county house, he learned from an under official that the boss "warn't to home; and," said he, "the children hadn't been here mor'n a few hours, when a highly-respec'able farmer had taken them with him to bring up." He couldn't "tell nothin' about who the farmer was, or where he was from; but the children wor well done for, that's all." It was in vain the priest represented that the children were no paupers, but of highly-respectable connections, who were able and willing to provide for them. ”

“ Can we not handle the plough, use the scythe, or the cradle as well as if we were of your school of heresy?"
"I allow; but the good book says that 'men don't gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles;' so I am afraid my crops would not prosper, if religious men were not employed in my fields."
"O, you need not be alarmed, boss. God makes his sun to shine on the good and the bad ”

“ He paid one hundred dollars for masses for the soul of poor Cunningham, who died of fever and ague one week after his having made the restitution. Two thousand, I believe, Paul paid into the convent where his sister Bridget has gone to become a nun. And the rest, I believe, he spent in raising an elegant monument over his parents and beloved Eugene's remains. O, yes, I forgot; he paid five hundred dollars towards the new Catholic church, S.A., where his convert friends reside."
"It is to me the strangest thing on earth," said old Mrs. ”

“ This bait took "capitally," as Van used to say, and not only were two hundred shanties built, but the praise of the "ginerous contractors" was in every mouth; and "Hurrah for Lofin, Van Stingey, & Co.," became a regular toast among the men, as they went to spend a shilling in the company's grocery store. The shanties were now up, and the horses, three hundred in number, all ready for work ”

“ All the sisterhood,—stout, thin, long-throated, or short,—should know the hour when the withering touch of age begins to shrink the soft, round curves distinctive of the full, sweet throat of healthful youth. No regretful vanity should be allowed to glamour their eyes to the fact that Time has them by the throat, to put it melodramatically. The wise woman will not please herself with a fatal delusion. She will realize it is illusion she needs-yards of it—lace or velvet, or any beautifying texture that will conceal the deadly lines of age. ”

“ Old Dame Nature is the prime teacher of these bewitching artifices. Note her fine effects with mists and cobwebs, with lace-like moss on sturdy old oaks, the bloom on the peach and the grape. Nature produces her most enchanting colorings with dust and age. ”

“ Let us listen as they sing their canticle to God, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, who is and who was and who is to come"; let us listen as they sing to us, for we are fellow citizens with them, and where they are we also must be if we remain faithful to the end. ”

“ For who will be, asks the saint, unmoved by those frequent passages in the Psalms in which are proclaimed the immensity, the omnipotence, the infallible justice, the goodness, the clemency of God? Or who is not moved by the prayers and thanksgivings for benefits received by the humble and trustful petitions, by the cries of souls sorrowing for sin, found in the Psalms? Whom will the Psalmist not fill with admiration when he recounts the gifts of the Divine loving kindness towards the people of Israel and all mankind, and when he sets forth the truths of heavenly wisdom? ”