“My face is red, my friend.  I can’t deny that fact; but the redness comes from a thin skin and rough weather.  What is it you want?  I haven’t time to wait.”

“Say, I kinder thought, seeing you and the doctor with them babies just now,”—­grinning again at the comical recollection—­“that maybe you would let me come into the game.  I’d like to take a hand in the deal, if there’s room for another player.  I’ll put up the stakes right now.”  His hand went into his breeches pocket this time.  “Here’s the roll I won on the fall races.  Put it all up on the game.  What’s the odds?  Come easy, go easy.”

He held out the money.  “I saw you at the court-house, too,” he added sheepishly, as if trying to excuse what he did.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Father Orin, gravely.  “I didn’t understand.  I’ve done you great injustice.”

“Hey?  What did you say?”

“The Sisters would be only too glad to use this money for those children, and for other little ones just as helpless and needy,” murmuring something about the use purifying the source.  “But I want you to take it to them yourself, and give it to them with your own hands.”

“Me!  Old Tommy Dye!”

The coarse face actually turned pale under its big freckles.  Its dismay was so comical that Father Orin laughed till the woods rang with his hearty, merry voice.  Toby turned his head in sober disapproval of such unseemly levity, and Tommy Dye was a good deal miffed.

“’Pears to me you are mighty lively—­and most of the time, too,” he said, in a tone of offence, tinged with wonder.

“Why not?” said the priest, still chuckling.  “Why shouldn’t I be lively?”

Tommy Dye hesitated, more puzzled now than angry.  “Well, you see, your job has always seemed to me just about the lonesomest there is.”

Father Orin began to laugh again, but he was hushed by the soft, sweet pealing of the Angelus through the shadowed forest.  The gambler also listened, with a softening change in the recklessness of his face.

“The sound of that bell always makes me feel queer,” he stammered.  “It sets me to thinking about home, too,—­and home folks.  I’m blamed if I can see how it is.  I never had any home, and if I’ve got any kin-folks, I don’t know where they live.  But anyhow, that’s the way the ringing of that bell always makes me feel.  Say! there’s lots of things about your church that come over a fellow like that.  Now there the very name of that little house back yonder amongst them trees—­Our Lady’s Chapel.  That’s just it—­just to the notch what I mean—­there’s something kind of homelike in the name itself.  And that’s the very difference between your church and the other churches.  The Protestant church seems real lonesome, like a sort of bachelor’s hall.  The Catholic church makes you feel at home, because there’s always a mother in the house.”

“Take care!” exclaimed the priest.  “But I am sure you don’t mean to be irreverent, my friend.  And about your generosity to the orphans.  Here, let me give the money back.  I am in earnest in asking you to give it to the Sisters with your own hands.  When they see you and you see them, you will both understand each other better than if I were to try ever so long and hard to explain.”