"
"I can christen the child as well as a priest," said Mrs. O'Brien;
"you take a child to the priest to be christened, when it's easy and
convenient, but when there's no priest near, and the child is sick and
seems likely to die before one can come, anybody can christen it; and
that christening stands, and it never has to be christened after.
That's the law of the Church. Bring me the water. I never saw a child
that seemed more likely to die than this one, if it's a child at all."
And Peter brought the water.
"What do you call the child?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
"I think we'll call him Terence," Peter answered. "That was my
grandfather's name, on my mother's side, and a decent man he was, and
uncommon fond of myself when I was a bit of a gossoon, till he died,
Heaven rest his soul! and I think I'd like to name the boy after him."
Now all that the child had been doing and all the noise that he had
been making before were simply nothing to what he had been doing ever
since Mrs. O'Brien first said the word "christen." He was screaming so
that all this talk could scarcely be heard, and it was almost more
than Mrs.
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