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Miss Bailey felt unable to cope, all unaided, with these sudden and bewildering changes. Isidore christened and Christianized! Isidore her godchild! She sought inspiration in the Principal, but his shoulders shook with unsympathetic mirth, and his face was turned away. Left to her own puzzled guidance, she answered:

“Really, Mrs. Diamantstein, you are too good. I have been trying to take care of–of–“

“Ignatius Aloysius,” murmured the Principal. “Ye gods, and with that face!”

“Of Ignatius,” continued Miss Bailey, stifling a wild inclination towards unseemly laughter, “and I should be delighted to be his godmother, but–but–“

“Well, then, that’s settled, and thank you Miss. And now the other thing: Will you take Ignatius Aloysius back into your class? Larry told me how them three children wouldn’t go to school for the longest time back, before I was married. Gettin’ the little place ready for me, he says they were, and stayin’ at home to do it. The darlin’s! And lately I was too busy with one thing and another to bring them back. But now I’ve got Denis and Michael, me other two boys, entered over at the Christian Brothers’ school. I was goin’ to send the little fellow there too, but he cried to come to you. Won’t you take him?”

Miss Bailey appealed to the Principal. “Please,” said she, “may I have my godson, Ignatius Aloysius, in my class?”

“I shall try to arrange it so.”

Mrs. Diamantstein fixed grateful eyes on Teacher. “You’re a good young lady,” she repeated, with deep conviction. “And if one of them was a girl I’d call him after you. May I make so bold as to ask your name?”

“Constance.”

“Well, now, that’s grand. That’s a beautiful name. Himself has two little girls in the orphans’ home and I think I’ll get one out and call it that. But, maybe, I won’t. But anyway, the first one I get I’ll call Constance, after you.”

When Mrs. Diamantstein had taken her decorous leave of the Principal, Miss Bailey and she walked to the great front door. As they reached it Mrs. Diamantstein reiterated her gratitude and added: “You’ll be there at three o’clock, won’t you, Miss? For we’re to have a grand time at the party after the christening. Father Burke promised to come home to the little place with us, and Larry is goin’ round now askin’ his friends. And it’s the queer owld friends he has, Miss, the queerest ever I seen, and with the queerest owld talk out of them. But sure, the little man will enjoy himself more if he has some of his own at the party.”

“And do you mean to tell me that the man is asking his Jewish friends to a Catholic christening?” remonstrated Miss Bailey, who had seen something of the racial antagonism which was rending all that district.

“Sure, not at all, Miss,” answered Mrs. Larry reassuringly. “Do you think I’d tell him what the party was for? What does the poor man know about christenings? and him, God help him, a haythen of a Jew. Make your mind easy, Miss; it’ll just be a party to him. No more than that.”

“But he–all of them–will see Father Burke,” Miss Bailey urged.

“And who could they see that would do them more good?” demanded Mrs. Diamantstein belligerently. “Cock them up then. It’s not often they’d be let into the one room with a saint of a man like that. They’ll likely be the better of it for all the rest of their poor dark days.”

Teacher made one more effort towards fair play. “I think,” she persisted, “that you ought to tell your husband what you intend to do. It would be dreadful if, after all your trouble, he should not let you change the boys’ religion.”

“Let, indeed!” cried the bride warmly. “He can wait to do that until he’s asked. I’d be long sorry to have a man like that with no bringing up of his own, as you might say, comin’ between me and me duty in the sight of God. ‘Let,’ is it?” And the broad shoulders of Bridget Diamantstein stiffened while her clear eye flashed. “Well, I’m fond enough of that little man, but I’d break his sewin’-machine and dance on his derby before I’d see him bring up the darlin’s for black Protestant Jews like himself.”

And across the space of many weeks, Mr. Diamantstein’s voice rang again in Teacher’s ears: “She’s a beautiful yonge uptown lady, but easy scared. Oh, awful easy scared!”

Well, love was ever blind.