CHAPTER II.

NEO-SOCIALISM.

Much to the surprise of Father McClosky, the key declined to enter the key-hole, for excellent Communistic reasons: there was a key already there. Moreover, voices, one very loud, the other very tearful, sounded on the other side of the door.

The priest drew back, with a sorrowful gesture. “It’s Mrs. Kellar,” he said. “She is what we call our Matron, for want of a better name; _die Hausfrau_, the Germans call her. She sees to the rooms, gives out the bed-linen and so on, and is an invaluable person, so clean and conscientious. But—well, one must have _les défauts de ses qualités_, as the French say; and though she is a born ruler and manager, she _has_ got a tongue and a temper. Of course, she has a pass-key to every room, and I suppose something has gone wrong in here, and she is scolding the unfortunate perpetrator.”

“Then we had better go in; I dare say it is nothing of any consequence that has happened,” said Ernest Clare, much amused by his friend’s correct English, which betrayed an inward perturbation very flattering to Frau Kellar’s powers of eloquence.

“I suppose we had,” said the little man hesitatingly; but with the touch of the door-knob his courage seemed to return. “Sure, she’s a well-meaning woman,” he said with a smile; “and as for temper, it’s not an Irishman that can cast a stone at her, from Malachi with the Collar of Gold, to the blessed St. Kevin himself.”

“Here he opened wide the door;” but there was a great deal more than darkness within. It was a neatly but plainly furnished sitting-room, with a brown-painted pine table, covered with a red cloth, four cane-seated chairs, and one large rocking-chair, a few empty pine bookshelves lining one side, an engraving or so, and a cheerful-looking carpet, on which—alas!—a hod of coals had been overturned. A small, pale, nervous-looking girl, with weak blue eyes and reddish hair, was on her knees beside the coals, picking them up in a weakly ineffective manner, that seemed to add fuel to the flame of Frau Kellar’s righteous anger, to the outpouring of which the victim returned no answer save the tears which dropped fast over the bridge of her nose, and, being brushed aside by a grimy hand, by no means added to her beauty.

The entrance of the two clergymen seemed to put the last stroke to her misery, for she immediately fell over on her face upon the coals, and lay there, making no sound, but shaking from head to foot with hysterical passion.

“Why, what’s all this?” said the priest good-humoredly. “Is that Lena Schaefer? You haven’t been making Lena cry, Mrs. Kellar?”

“The lazy good-for-nothing!” cried Mrs. Kellar. “Will tears pick up the coals, I should like to know?”

“Not so well as a pair of hands,” said Mr. Clare cheerfully. “Come, Miss Lena, since this is to be my room, I have the best right to work in it, haven’t I?”

He picked up the thin, light form as if she had been a child, and set her, literally, to dry off, in the rocking-chair, which she only half filled, and whence, overcome with amazement, she peeped from under the shadow of her apron at the handsome gentleman on his knees remedying the results of her carelessness.

“It’s a poor welcome for you, Mr. Clare,” said Frau Kellar. “I came in to see if everything was in order, and found the fire nearly gone out; so I rang for Lena, as these rooms are her business, and the silly thing, before she could get the coal on the fire, dropped the hod, and then couldn’t do nothing but cry.”

As she explained, she had made a futile effort to assist in remedying the evil, which Mr. Clare had silently but decidedly refused.

“Sure, I suppose she came in such haste that her hand shook. Isn’t it right I am, Lena?”

“The bell rang so loud it frightened me,” said Lena, who had been making a brave struggle for self-control. “I didn’t forget the fire, Father; it was only that I didn’t put on quite enough coal.”

“And ain’t the best of us liable to errors of judgment?” said the priest. “Give the child leave to run away now, Mrs. Kellar, and bathe her eyes. She’ll feel better when she’s had her dinner.”

“I’d like to sweep up the dust for you, sir,” said the girl, with a look of appealing confidence, which made her face, despite its homeliness and grimy tear-stains, not absolutely unattractive.

“To-morrow,” said Ernest Clare, smiling down at her, “to-morrow you shall do whatever you like, but for to-day Father McClosky’s advice is the best. A good dinner is the medicine you need.” He bowed her from the room as if she had been the first lady in the land—poor Lena, who had never had the door opened for her since she was tall enough to reach the knob—and said as she passed him, “I am glad you have the care of these rooms, for I am sure you will take great pains with them; but I will try to give you as little trouble as possible.”

Lena did not reply; poor girl, her face and eyes were not in condition even to look an answer; but she went away with a heart overrunning with gratitude, and a firm determination that, while she had strength to crawl, Mr. Clare should never have cause to complain of neglect.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kellar had seized the hearth-broom, and was busily getting rid of the relics of the catastrophe. No one offered to relieve her of the duty; the priest had seated himself, and was quietly looking on, and Ernest Clare passed through the open door into his bedroom, in order to remove from his hands the traces of his late occupation.

“Sure, it’s a pity,” began the priest, after a moment or two—

“Don’t speak to me, Father McClosky,” said the woman, half petulantly; “ain’t I calling myself worse names yet than I’ve called Lena already?”

“But calling names is no good, Mrs. Kellar; though I admit there’s a power of satisfaction in it at times.”

“That’s so, Father. That poor girl! Did not Dr. Richards say that the best hope for her health is in the regular hours and regular work here? and didn’t I take her from her father’s house to have her under my eye”—

“Well, well, we are none of us perfect,” said the priest consolingly; “but I think ye should try to remember one thing, Mrs. Kellar. It’s a great thing we are doing here for the poor, and there’s a many would like to see something of the kind prevail all through the land; but that sort of thing, Mrs. Kellar, ye may call it Communism, or Socialism, or whatever ye like, but av there isn’t self-control and loving-kindness at the bottom of it, ’twill be a hell on earth.”

“Indeed, you are right, Father, and I’ve said so already many a time,” returned Frau Kellar, with her apron to her eyes; “but it don’t tie my tongue when I once get to scolding.”

“Nothing will do that but the grace of God,” said the priest. “Av ye was a Catholic, ye’d have the Sacraments to help ye; but, sure, even as a Protestant, ye have Him who is above all Sacraments. There’s a little