Lily hastened to assure him that she regarded
the style as perfect.

"That's right, little ma'amselle," returned the
ancient servitor, nodding his head in grave
satisfaction. "We are au troisième, it is true,
but still we perform our functions here in the
way they were performed before the evil times.
The bulk of our fortune, alas! ve have lost, but
we contrive to exist, and to keep up our style on
crumbs. You see that our forks and spoons are
still of silver?"

Yes, Lily had noticed that.

"The days have been," Vieux Sablons
continued, "when I have had the honour to serve
Madame and her guests entirely off silver, ay,
and off silver-gilt. But what would you have?
The accursed revolution has ruined all. The
Gauls triumph. Poor France!"

"Poor Madame de Kergolay!" murmured Lily,
softly.

"You are right, my child," said the old man.
"We keep up our style, and there is that scamp
of a grand-nephew, and Madame is an angel to
the poor, and all upon ten thousand francs a
year. And the manor of Vieux Sablons alone
was once worth a million."

"A million!" echoed Lily, who had scarcely
ever heard of so large a sum of money.

"A million! 'Tis I who say it to you. Now
we are reduced to ten thousand miserable francs.
The appointments of an employé, quoi! But
I tell you what," the old man, in his thin pipe
continued, clenching a trembling hand; "the
day that our funds begin to fail us, and Madame
says, 'Vieux Sablons, we must sell the silver, and
dine with one course instead of three, or I shall
have no bread to give to my poor,' that day I
will beg, that day I will thieve for the House of
Kergolay."

"But Madame would be angry," Lily gently
pleaded.

"Very well, very well. I have another
resource. I will go to a bureau de remplaçants
and sell myself as a substitute for one drawn in
the conscription. That is a thousand francs.
France always wants men; and I am strong—
oh! I am strong yet. Good night, little
ma'amselle."

Poor Vieux Sablons! He was nearly eighty,
and would not have made, I fear, a very stalwart
grenadier.

THE FENIAN BROTHERS.

NOT long ago a meeting was held in the
Rotundo at Dublin to express the indignation of
Young Ireland at a vote of the Dublin corporation,
which gave a site upon College-green for a
statue to the late Prince Consort. But although
Young Ireland was left in quiet possession of
that meeting, it did not choose to be quiet.
There was no proud Saxon to lay low, so, at the
mention of a name welcome to some patriots, but
unwelcome to others, uprose a band of Fenians,
tore off the legs of chairs and tables, smartly
applied them to the heads of brother patriots,
carried the platform by storm, and waved
triumphantly the green tablecloth of Erin over a
mad hullabaloo. This was a grand exhibition
of the materials for that peculiar joint-stock
society, "the Fenian Brotherhood," promoted
by a few sharpers for the profitable cultivation
of Irish flats. Appeal is made to the
unreasoning love of a row still common among the
uneducated Irish. The Irish faction against the
English faction! Whew! what a grand fight
it'll be! It would "electrify the world," says
the editor of the Chicago Fenian, and it would
be "one of the grandest events in history,
because it would necessarily involve the overthrow
of an Imperial system greater than any the
world has seen since the fall of the Roman,
perhaps greater than the Roman itself." If
Hungary overthrew Austria, he goes on to show,
five centuries hence, general history would give
only five pages to the fact. If Poland overthrew
Russia, five pages would be more than enough to
tell that tale: But the overthrow of the British
Empire, that would be grand indeed! The day
Irishmen humble the haughty crest of England,
they chain the glory of Ireland for ever to the stars.
To this eloquent prophecy is added, "Who can
doubt the ultimate success of a cause, the undying
faith in which is cherished in the hearts of
a people from father to son, and evident by acts
time and again significant as the following:—"
The following fact being, that the brothers John
Patrick and Edward Gaffney have sent to the
Irish National Fair, Chicago, "two pairs of
boots, patent leather and morocco tops." Surely
these patent leather boots of the Gaffneys,
wherewith England is defied, are sublimer than
the boots of Bombastes, that were not chained
to the stars, but only hung from a tree:

Whoever dare these boots displace,
Must meet BOMBASTES face to face!

But what is the Irish National Fair, Chicago,
to which it is so glorious a thing to have sent
two pairs of patent leather boots with morocco
tops? Well; Chicago, on Lake Michigan, at
the mouth of the Chicago River, is the chief
city of Illinois, of which the growth during
the last thirty years has been so rapid as to
be wonderful even in America. Ten years
ago it was the largest primary grain depôt in
the world, and its population, now of about a
hundred and ten thousand, has trebled since
that time. It trades with three thousand miles
of coast line on the lakes, and has navigable
water communication with the Mississippi and
the sea: so that it can load a vessel at its wharves
either for New Orleans or for Liverpool. Among
the Irishmen in this town of Chicago, the
"Fenian Brotherhood" professes to have its
head-quarters. Here, certain flats and sharpers
held in November last what was called the
"First General Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood,"
whereat they resolved that this " Brotherhood"
should be a fixed and permanent institution
in America, with a head centre, state centres, and
centres of circles; and that the object of its
members should be "to gird their loins silently and