She seemed to have more business about the church than even the priest.

She was always playing the organ, or drilling the choir, or decorating the altars with flowers, or looking over the robes of the acolytes for rents and stains, or going in or out of the pastorate.

Clearly this was not the sort of girl to take a Protestant husband.
The gossip of the town concerning her was, however, exclusively Protestant.

The Irish spoke of her, even among themselves, but seldom.
There was no occasion for them to pretend to like her: they did not know her, except in the most distant and formal fashion.

Even the members of the choir, of both sexes, had the sense of being held away from her at haughty arm's length.