-and I'll tell you what, Mary, we are growing-not to say ould-but advancing to the region of middle life-past its meridian, indeed—and we can't afford to be throwing away our substance on the like of Aby

"James!" exclaimed Mary.

Ay, indeed, Mary; we must come to a period-a full stop, I mean—and”—he drew a deep breath, then added—“ and take no more poor scholars!"

"Oh, James, don't say the likes o' that," said the gentlehearted woman; "don't a poor scholar never came into the house that I didn't feel as if he brought fresh air from heaven with him-I never miss the bit I give them-my heart warms to the soft homely sound of their bare feet on the floor, and the door a'most opens of itself to let them in."

Still, we must take care of ourselves, woman dear," replied James with a dogged look. Why the look should be called "dogged," I do not know, for dogs are anything but obstinate, or given to it; but he put on the sort of look so called; and Mary, not moved from her purpose, covered the mouth of the jug with a huge red apple-potato, and beckoning a neighbour's child, who was hopping over the multiplication-table in the little courtyard, desired her to run for her life, with the jug, while it was hot, to the house where Aby stopt that week, and be sure tell him he was to take it after he had said his prayers, and while it was screeching hot. She then drew her wheel opposite her husband, and began spinning.

"I thought, James," she said, "that Abel was a strong pet of yours, though you've cooled to him of late; I'm sure he got you a deal of credit."

"All I'll ever get by him."

66 Oh, don't say that!-sure the blessing is a fine thing; and all the learning you give out, James, honey, doesn't lighten what you have in your head, which is a grate wonder. If I only take the meal out of the losset, handful by handful, it wastes away; but your brains hould out better than the meal: take ever so much away, and there's the same still."

Mary, you're a fool, agra!" answered her husband; but he smiled. The schoolmaster was a man, and all men like flattery, even from their wives.

"And that's one reason, dear, why you can't be a loser by giving your learning to them that wants it," she continued; "it does them good, and does you no harm."

The schoolmaster made no answer, and Mary continued. She was a true woman, getting her husband into a good humour before she intimated her object.

"I've always thought a red head lucky, dear."

"The ancients valued the colour highly," he answered.

"Think of that now! And a boy I saw to-day had just such another lucky mole as yourself under his left eye."

"What boy?" inquired the master.

"A poor fatherless and motherless craythur, with his Vosters and little books slung in a strap at his back, and a purty tidy second suit of clothes under his arm for Sunday. It put me in mind of the way you tould me you set off poor scholaring yerself, darlin'!-all as one as that poor little boy, barrin' the second suit of clothes."

"What did he want?" inquired O'Leary, resuming his bad temper; for Mary made a mistake in her second hit. She judged of his character by her own. Prosperity had rendered her more thoughtful and anxious to dispense the blessings she enjoyed, but it had hardened her husband.

"Just six months of your taching to make a man of him, that's all."

"Has he the money to pay for it?"

*

"I'm sure I never asked him. The trifle collected for a poor scholar is little enough to give him a bit to eat, without paying anything to a strong man like yerself, James O'Leary; only just the ase and contintment it brings to one's sleep by night, and one's work by day, to be afther doing a kind turn to a fellowChristian."

"Mary," replied the schoolmaster, in a slow and decided tone, "that's all botheration."

Mary gave a start: she could hardly believe she heard correctly; but there sat James O'Leary, looking as hard as if he had been turned from a man of flesh into a man of stone.

"Father of mercy!" she exclaimed, "spake again, man alive! and tell us is it yerself that's in it!"

James laughed-not joyously or humorously, but a little dry half-starved laugh, lean and hungry-a niggardly laugh; but before he had time to reply, the door opened slowly and timidly, and a shock of rusty red hair, surmounting a pale acute face, entered, considerably in advance of the body to which it belonged.

"That's the boy I tould you of," said Mary. "Come in ma bouchal; the master himself's in it now, and will talk to you, dear."

"The boy advanced his slight delicate form, bowed both by study and privation, and his keen penetrating eyes looking out from beneath the projecting brows which overshadowed them.

Mary told him to sit down; but he continued standing, his fingers twitching convulsively amid the leaves of a Latin book, in which he hoped to be examined.

"What's your name?-and stand up!" said the master gruffly.

The boy told him his name was Edward Moore, and asked "if

* Rich.

he would give him the run of the school, an odd lesson now and agin, and let him pick up as much as he could?"

"And what," inquired O'Leary, "will you give me in re

turn?"

"I have but little, sir," replied the boy, "for my mother has six of us, paying to one, whose face we never see, a heavy rent for the shed we starve under. My father's in heaven-r -my eldest sister a cripple-and but for the kindness of the neighbours, and the goodness of one or two families at Christmas and Whitsuntide, and, above all, the blessing of God, which never laves us, we might turn out upon the roadand beg."

"But all that is nothing to me," said O'Leary very coldly.

"I know that, sir," answered the boy; yet he looked as if he did not know it, "though your name's up in the country for kindness, as well as learning. But I was coming to it —I have a trifle of about eighteen shillings, besides five which the priest warned me to keep, when I went for his blessing, as he said I might want it in case of sickness; and I was thinking if yer honour would take ten out of the eighteen, for a quarter, or so; I know I can't pay yer honour as Í ought, only just for the love of God; and if ye'd please to examine me in the Latin, his reverence said I'd be no disgrace to you."

Just let me see what ye've got," said the schoolmaster. The boy drew forth from inside his waistcoat the remnant of a cotton nightcap, and held it towards the schoolmaster's extended hand; but Mary stood between her husband and his temptation.

"Put it up, child," she said; "the masther doesn't want it; he only had a mind to see if it was safe." Then aside to her husband, "Let fall yer hand, James; it's the devil that's under yer elbow keeping it out, nibbling as the fishes do at the hook ; is it the thin shillings of a widow's son you'd be afther taking? It's not yerself that's in it at all." Then to the boy, "Put it up, dear, and come in the morning." But the silver had shone in the master's eyes through the worn-out knitting-"the thin shillings," as Mary called them—and their chink aroused his avarice the more. So, standing up, he put aside his wife, as men often do good counsel, with a strong arm, and declared that he would have all or none; and that without pay he would receive no pupil. The boy, thirsting for learning, almost without hesitation agreed to give him all he possessed, only saying that "the Lord above would raise him up some friend who would give him a bit, a sup, and a lock of straw to sleep on.' Thus the bargain was struck, the penniless child turned from the door, knowing that, at least for that night, he would receive shelter from some kind-hearted cotter, and perhaps give in exchange tuition to those who could not afford to go to the "great master;"

while the dispenser of knowledge, chinking the "thin shillings," strode towards a well-heaped hoard to add thereto the mite of a fatherless boy. Mary crouched over the cheerful fire, rocking herself backwards and forwards in real sorrow, and determined to consult the priest as to the change that had come over her husband, turning him out of himself into something “not right."

This was O'Leary's first public attempt to work out his determination, and he was thoroughly ashamed of himself. He did not care to encounter Mary's reproachful looks, so he brought over his blotted desk, and sat with his back to her, apparently intent on his books; but despite all he could do, his mind went wandering back to the time he was a poor scholar himself; and no matter whether he looked over problems, or turned the leaves of Homer, there was the pale gentle face of the poor scholar, whom he had "fleeced" to the uttermost.

"Mary," he said, anxious to be reconciled to himself, "there never was one of them poor scholars that had not twice as much as they purtended."

"Was that the way with yerself, avick?” she answered. James pushed back the desk, flung the ruler at the cat, bounced the door after him, and went to bed. He did not fall very soon asleep-nor, when he did, did he sleep very soundly-but tossed and tumbled about in a most undignified manner; so much so, that his poor wife left off rocking, and, taking out her beads, began praying as hard and fast as she could; and she believed her prayers took effect, for he soon became tranquil, and slept soundly. But Mary went on praying. She was accounted what was called the steadiest hand at prayers in the country; but, on this particular night, she prayed on without stopping, until the gray cock, who always crowed at four, told her what the time was, and she thought she might as well sleep for a couple of hours; for Mary could not only pray when she liked, but sleep when she pleased, which is frequently the case with the innocent-hearted. As soon, however, as she hung the beads on the same nail that supported the holy water, cross, and cup, James gave a groan and a start, and called her. "Give me your hand," he said, "that I may know it's you that's in it." Mary did so, and affectionately bade God bless him.

"Mary, my own ould darling," he whispered, "I'm a grate sinner, and all my learning isn't-isn't worth a brass farthing." Mary was really astonished to hear him say this. "It's quite in airnest I am, dear; and here's the key of my little box, and go and bring out that poor scholar's nightcap, and take care of his money, and as soon as day breaks entirely, go find out where he's stopping, and tell him I'll never touch cross nor coin belonging to him, nor one of his class, and give him back his coins of silver and his coins of brass; and, Mary, agra, if you've the

power, turn every boy in the parish into a poor scholar, that I may have the satisfaction of taching them; for I've had a DREAM, Mary, and I'll tell it to you, who knows better than myself how to be grateful for such a warning. There, praise the holy saints! is a streak of daylight; now listen, Mary, and don't interrupt me:

I suppose it's dead I was first; but, anyhow, I thought I was floating about in a dark space, and every minute I wanted to fly up, but something kept me down. I could not rise—and as I grew used to the darkness, you see, I saw a great many things floating about like myself-mighty curious shapes. One of them, with wings like a bat, came close up to me; and, after all, what was it but a Homer; and I thought maybe it would help me up; but when I made a grab at it, it turned into smoke. Then came a great white-faced owl, with red bothered eyes, and out of one of them glared a Voster, and out of the other a Gough; and globes and inkhorns changed, Mary, in the sight of my two looking eyes, into vivacious tadpoles, swimming here and there, and making game of me as they passed. Oh, I thought the time was a thousand years, and everything about me talking bad Latin and Greek that would bother a saint, and I without power to answer or to get away. I'm thinking it was the schoolmaster's purgatory I was in."

66

Maybe so," replied Mary, "particularly as they wouldn't let you correct the bad Latin, dear."

"But it changed, Mary, and I found myself, afther a thousand or two years, in the midst of a mist-there was a mistiness all around me—and in my head-but it was a clear, soft, downy-like vapour, and I had my full liberty in it, so I kept on going upup for ever so many years, and by degrees it cleared away, drawing itself into a bohreen at either side, leading towards a great high hill of light, and I made straight for the hill; and having got over it, I looked up, and of all the brightnesses Í ever saw, was the brightness above me the brightest; and the more I looked at it, the brighter it grew; and yet there was no dazzle in my eyes; and something whispered me that that was heaven, and with that I fell down on my knees, and asked how I was to get up there; for mind ye, Mary, there was a gulf between me and the hill, or, to speak more to your understanding, a gap; the hill of light above me was in no ways joined to the hill on which I stood. So I cried how was I to get there. Well, before you could say twice ten, there stood before me seven poor scholars, those seven, dear, that I taught, and that have taken the vestments since. I knew them all, and I knew them well. Many a hard day's work I had gone through with them, just for that holy blessed pay, the love of God-there they stood, and Abel at

their head."

“Oh, yah mulla! think of that now, my poor Aby; didn't I know the good pure drop was in him!" interrupted Mary. 31