In busy times there was often
all the mail matter that a clerk could bring. The agent sat down at
his desk in the counting-room and the priest opened a thick foreign
letter with evident pleasure. "'Tis from an old friend of mine; he's
in a monastery in France," he said. "I only hear from him once a
year," and Father Daley settled himself in his armchair to read the
close-written pages. As for the agent of the mills, he had quickly
opened a letter from the treasurer and was not listening to anything
that was said.
Suddenly he whirled round in his desk chair and held out the letter to
the priest. His hand shook and his face was as pale as ashes.
"What is it? What's the matter?" cried the startled old man, who had
hardly followed the first pious salutations of his own letter to their
end. "Read it to me yourself, Dan; is there any trouble?"
"Orders--I've got orders to start up; we're going to start--I wrote
them last week--"
But the agent had to spring up from his chair and go to the window
next the river before he could steady his voice to speak. He thought
it was the look of the moving water that made him dizzy. "We're going
to start up the mills as soon as I can get things ready." He turned to
look up at the thermometer as if it were the most important thing in
the world; then the color rushed to his face and he leaned a moment
against the wall.
"Thank God!" said the old priest devoutly. "Here, come and sit down,
my boy. Faith, but it's good news, and I'm the first to get it from
you.
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