BLESSED ARE THE POOR 



Here was a statement quite to Judy's taste. Loud were 

 her groans of approval. She turned up her eyes with 

 great piety, and the gusto with which she beat her breast 

 indicated that she took the benediction entirely to herself. 

 "But don't think, me brethren/' went on the ecclesiastic 

 warningly, " that this means that because you're poor in 

 purse you're pleasing to God. It's the poor in spirit that 

 I do be meaning. There's many a poor body with a proud 

 heart." 



Now poor old Judy must have been conscious of the 

 possession of this spiritual drawback / for even as she had 

 taken the text as a direct compliment, so she now took the 

 corollary to it as a personal insult. She drew herself up 

 with a jerk and threw a glance of furious reproach at the 

 speaker. No more groans should His Riverence have out 

 of her! No nor tongue clacking, nor chest thumpings 

 either ! 



For the rest of his sermon she remained rigid, fixing her 

 gaze upon him with an unwavering glare of disapproval. 



As the priest had to come from a considerable distance, he 

 was generally late / and as the congregation itself straggled 

 in from over the hills, sometimes much before the hour, it 

 was the pious custom at Rathenisha for the two model 

 damsels of the congregation each to read aloud out of 

 a different book of sermons for the edification of the 

 assembly in the delay before Mass. They had fine loud 

 voices and read simultaneously / the effect can be better 

 imagined than described. One ear would be struck by 

 genteel accents proclaiming, "Admoire the obedience of 



