The Woman Thou Gavest Me

the speaker as the guardian (grown greyer and even less
prepossessing) who had crossed with the young Lord Raa when he was going
up to Oxford; and his companions were a smooth-faced man with searching
eyes who was introduced as his lordship's solicitor from London, a Mr.
Curphy, whom I knew to be my father's advocate, and my dear old Father
Dan.

I was surprised to find Father Dan a smaller man than I had thought him,
very plain and provincial, a little country parish priest, but he had
the tender smile I always remembered, and the sweet Irish roll of the
vowels that I could never forget.

"God bless you," he said. "How well you're looking! And how like your
mother, Lord rest her soul! I knew the Blessed Virgin would take care of
you, and she has, she has."

Three conveyances were waiting for us--a grand brougham for the Bishop,
a big motor-car for the guardian and the London lawyer, and a still
bigger one for ourselves.

"Well, s'long until to-morrow then," cried my father, getting up into
the front row of his own ear, with the advocate beside him and Father
Dan and myself behind.

On the way home Father Dan talked of the business that had brought me
back, saying I was not to think too much of anything he might have said
of Lord Raa in his letters, seeing that he had spoken from hearsay, and
the world was so censorious--and then there was no measuring the
miraculous influence that might be exercised by a good woman.

He said this with a certain constraint, and was more at ease when he
spoke of the joy that ought to come into a girl's life at her
marriage--her first love, her first love-letter, her wedding-day and her
first baby, all the sweet and wonderful things of a new existence which
a man could never know.

"Even an old priest may see that," he said, with a laugh and a pat of my
hand.

We dropped Mr. Curphy at his house in Holmtown, and then my father sat
with us at the back, and talked with tremendous energy of what he had
done, of what he was going to do, and of al

Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine CH, KBE (May 14, 1853August 31, 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British author. He is best known as a novelist and playwright of the late Victorian and the Edwardian eras. In his time he was exceedingly popular and at the peak of his success his novels outsold those of his contemporaries. Many of his novels were also made into films. His novels were primarily romantic in nature, involving the love triangle, but they did also address some of the more serious political and social issues of the day.

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