"I begin to feel that I shall find years
of a novel, and, I trust, patriotic, excitement
here."

"By-the-by," continued the steward, " we
must have a school. I have got a plan for
it. There it is, with its belfry," pulling the
plan from his pocket. "Cannot you fancy
you see it, Sir Thomas, already peeping over
the birch trees there in the middle of the
village that is to be? For my part, I could
think I heard the bell ringing."

"But, you forget— all the people are
Catholics, and they will not let the children
be taught by us heretics. The priests will
spoil all that part of your Utopia."

"No, they won't," said the steward; " we
will do just as Mr. Ellis, the brother of the
Member for Leicester, has done. Mr. Ellis,
you know, some years ago bought an estate in
Galway. He had satisfied himself long before
the Encumbered Estates Act was dreamt of,
that an English capitalist might come here
and invest his money well, and at the same
time to the essential advantage of Ireland.
He soon found that all the raw-head and
bloody-bone stories of Irish country life had
but one foundation—injustice and oppression:
that a just man was as safe here as anywhere.
He employed the Irish, and found them not
only willing, but zealous labourers. He gave
them a shilling a day."

"A shilling a day' is evidently your
panacea for all the evils of Ireland," remarked
the baronet, drily.

"Well, Sir, Mr. Ellis had always more men
on his list at a shilling a day, than he could
employ, and those employed saved money and
went to America. Their places, as vacated,
were filled up by the next on his list. He
built a school, got a good schoolmaster, and
desired the people to send their children.
They were all Catholics, but they came. The
priests took the alarm, and commanded the
people to keep their children from the school.
Still the children came, and very soon came
the Catholic archbishop; saw the school, and
issued his prohibition against the children
frequenting it. Mr. Ellis was now alarmed; but
he explained to the parents that he did not
want to proselytise the children; he only
wished to educate them so as to qualify them
for conducting their worldly affairs; and as
many of the children came a long way, he said
he would give them a bit of dinner. These
two arguments triumphed. The dinner and
the inditference to proselytism left his school
as full as ever. In a while the Catholic
archbishop came again. He looked round the
school, said 'Very good! very good!' and
went away.

"Thus Mr. Ellis got all that he expected to
get in the first instance. If he pressed for
more, he would have lost all. He would only
have defeated himself. But he has shown us,
that we may get the lands of Ireland occupied
by intelligent and substantial proprietors;
the people employed and contented; and the
children educated in the plain elements of
secular knowledge. This is our foundation,—
on which time and knowledge and mutual
confidence will raise a superstructure which
shall astonish our children."

Sir Thomas was silent for several minutes.
He was revolving what the steward had said;
but he was soon interrupted by a servant,
who came to say that the builder with his men
were come; and Sir Thomas and the steward
hurried off to the house.

Soon after this conversation there might
be seen approaching the mansion of Sporeen
wagons, with ladders, ropes, tools, and lime,
attended by a score of men. The doors of
the hall were thrown open; and the master-
builder was seen extremely busy on the roof,
with his rule in his hand, directing his men
to strip off the slates, and let them down to
the ground in baskets. His object was to
get the roof thus thoroughly repaired before
winter, that the internal restoration might be
going on securely during that season. When
spring came, scaffolding rose all round the
house. Windows and doors were cleared
away without remorse, and the walls stood
as naked of glass or wood-work as on the day
they were raised; while all below was one
great wilderness of heaps of decayed timbers
and rubbish.

Within twelve months, Sporeen stood once
more in greater splendour even than in
former days. Although the mansion
presented the same general appearance as it did
in its palmy days, a few touches of architectural
beauty were modestly, rather than
obtrusively, added. Roof, doors, windows, were
fresh and bright, and complete. The noble
flight of steps in front was scoured and
whitened; their dazzling formality relieved
by the green foliage of creepers, which were
allowed to encroach over the sides and ends
of the stones. The rubbish, and the lime,
and tools, and wood of the workmen, were
swept away from the courtyard of the house,
and the walks and shrubberies were once more
restored to all their beauty by new gravel,
and the attentions of the gardener. Gates
again swung in all the neatness of paint and
smoothness of hinges, instead of stooping
towards the earth in sullen decay; and through
these drove eight vans laden with splendid
new furniture. Never since Sporeen House
was first raised, had it presented so brilliant
an appearance both inside and outside.

At length, one fine day towards the end
of October, a capacious family carriage,
heavily laden with imperials, trunks, boxes,
and baskets, drove up to the house of
Sporeen. A cluster of eager curly heads were
thrust out of each window. It contained
Lady Wellbury and the children. Sir Thomas
was already there to receive them; and as
they all ascended that beautiful flight of steps
where the old regime had died out in sudden
terror, Sir Thomas and Lady Wellbury and
their troop of happy children stood, and