Father Shamrock was soon the star of the ship’s company.  Perfectly suave, his gayety had rather the French sparkle about it than the distinguishing Italian trait, and his easy manner had a dash of manliness which I had not thought to find.  Accomplished in various tongues, rattling off a gay little chanson or an Irish song, it was a sight to see the young priests looking in from time to time at the cabin door in despair as the clock pointed to nine, and Father Shamrock still sat the centre of a gay and laughing circle.

He had rare tact, too, in talking to women.  Of all the ladies on the Algeria, I question if there were any but the staunchest Protestants.  Some few held themselves aloof at first and declined an introduction.  “Father Shamrock!  An Irish priest!  How can Miss Meyrick walk with him and present him as she does?” But the party of recalcitrants grew less and less, and Fanny Meyrick was very frank in her admiration.  “Convert you?” she laughed over her shoulder to me.  “He wouldn’t take the trouble to try.”

And I believe, indeed, he would not.  His strong social nature was evidently superior to any ambition of his cloth.  He would have made a famous diplomat but for the one quality of devotion that was lacking.  I use the word in its essential, not in its religious sense—­devotion to an idea, the faith in a high purpose.

We had one anxious day of it, and only one.  A gale had driven most of the passengers to the seclusion of their state-rooms, and left the dinner-table a desert.  Alone in the cabin, Father Shamrock, Fanny Meyrick, a young Russian and myself:  I forget a vigilant duenna, the only woman on board unreconciled to Father Shamrock.  She lay prone on one of the seats, her face rigid and hands clasped in an agony of terror.  She was afraid, she afterward confessed to me, to go to her state-room:  nearness and voices seemed a necessity to her.

When I joined the party, Father Shamrock, as usual, was the narrator.  But he had dropped out of his voice all the gay humor, and was talking very soberly.  Some story he was telling, of which I gathered, as he went on, that it was of a young lady, a rich and brilliant society woman.  “Shot right through the heart at Chancellorsville, and he the only brother.  They two, orphans, were all that were left of the family.  He was her darling, just two years younger than she.

“I went to see her, and found her in an agony.  She had not kissed him when he left her:  some little laughing tiff between them, and she had expected to see him again before his regiment marched.  She threw herself on her knees and made confession; and then she took a holy vow:  if the saints would grant her once more to behold his body, she would devote herself hereafter to God’s holy Church.

“She gathered all her jewels together in a heap and cast them at my feet.  ’Take them, Father, for the Church:  if I find him I shall not wear them again—­or if I do not find him.’