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Ex ICthrtja 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 "t ' 'Tort nietuu lAm/lerdam, oj? Je M<rnha,tarus 
 
 When you leave, please leave this book 
 
 Because it has been said 
 "Sver'thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned book." 
 
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 fiAJr^h^ 
 
 4 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/fromkillarneytonOOcusa_0 
 
from: 
 KILLAMEY TO NEW YORK ; 
 
 OB, 
 
 HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 
 
 BY 
 
 SISTER MARY FRANCIS CLARE, 
 
 (THE NUN OF KENMARE.) 
 
 A Story of Eeal Life. 
 
 FR. PUSTET & CO., 
 'New York and Cincinnati. 
 

 p/v 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This tale was written by Sister Mary Francis Clare, the illustri- 
 ous Nun of Kenmare, at the request of the publisher of McGee's 
 Illustrated Weekly, to typify an incident in Irish-American 
 life, which, though by no means unusual, can hardly be credited, 
 except by those who have specially devoted their attention to the 
 peculiarities of Irish life, and to its rapid, and generally success- 
 ful, development under the genial influence of American institu- 
 tions and customs. 
 
 'the readers are assured that the main incidents of the tale are 
 drawn from actual life; the moral can be applied by themselves. 
 
 N?w York, 1877. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 Chapter II. 
 Chapter III. 
 Chapter IV. 
 Chapter V. 
 Chapter VI. 
 Chapter VII. 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 Chapter II. 
 Chapter III. 
 Chapter IV. 
 Chapter V. 
 Chapter Vv. 
 Chapter VII. 
 Chapter VIII. 
 Chapter IX. 
 Chapter X. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Tim O'Halloran's Choice / 
 
 Father James 14 
 
 How Thade was Lost and Found 19 
 
 The Blanders Family at Home 25 
 
 Ellen Maloney's Conversion 29 
 
 Back at the Hall-Door 33 
 
 In the Police Court 41 
 
 Three Letters 48 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 Where am I Going ? 58 
 
 Blood-Guiltiness 64 
 
 Thade 72 
 
 Not all Smooth Water 77 
 
 The Tempter Again 82 
 
 Rosaline 87 
 
 Thade's Choice 91 
 
 " The Boy's Honest, after all" 97 
 
 Thade finds New Friends 101 
 
 Ten Years Later 104 
 
FROM 
 
 Killarney to New York; 
 
 OR, 
 
 HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TIM O'HALLORAN'S CHOICE. 
 
 ** Tis but a step, down yonder lane, 
 And the little church stands near ; 
 The church where we were wed, Mary, 
 I see its spire from here." 
 
 The Countess of Gifford. 
 
 "Well, I give you your choice, my good man; if you don't 
 care for yourself, care for your boy. The society which I repre- 
 sent will undertake to feed, clothe and educate him the moment 
 you " — the speaker paused. The grey shades of death were set- 
 tling down in all the awfulness of that time when famine was the 
 slayer of thousands ; but there was a fine scorn on the face of the 
 dying man — a scorn which even an angelic being might have ex- 
 pressed if tempted by Lucifer to exchange heaven for earth. 
 
 The little flame of life was flickering in the frail socket of 
 humanity, but it flashed up into a blaze as the devil offered his 
 bait. 
 
8 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 "And that's your religion," replied honest Tim: "you know 
 I am dying and you want me to face God Almighty with a 
 thundering lie these mountains wouldn't cover, " and his trem- 
 bling finger pointed to the glowing rocks, now purpled with the 
 last rays of the setting sun. " Before the light shines on poor 
 old Ireland again I'll be where there is no sun but Almighty 
 God Himself — glory be to His name ! — and His blessed Mother 
 Mary." 
 
 "Oh," interrupted the Bible-reader, " if it's the Virgin Mary 
 you're trusting to, I pity you. Why, my good man, will you be 
 so foolish ? I promise you to provide for this boy. I promise 
 you to — a — in fact, to make a gentleman of him. But really I 
 must beg of you to consider in your last moments how foolish 
 you are to be putting your trust in a mere woman. Why, how 
 do you know that the blessed Virgin, as you call her, is in 
 heaven?" 
 
 " Htow do I know !" exclaimed the dying man, and for a 
 moment a shade of the rare wit flickered up — the wit that had 
 made Tim O'Halloran famous at fair and pattern for years; 
 " oh, then, sure it's the quare son that would let his mother be in 
 the bad place when he had the power to keep her out of it; and 
 ye say yourselves there's no other place but heaven; so where 
 would the Mother of God be ? " 
 
 Mr. Blanders was well used to meeting his match in arguments 
 with the Irish peasantry, so he was not particularly disconcerted 
 by Tim's home-thrust. His arguments were golden; but they 
 had not been by any means as effectual as he could have desired. 
 With him it was simply a matter of money. His own religious 
 convictions — if such convictions could be called religious — were 
 simply that one religion is as good as another, but that money 
 was a tangible possession very desirable in this world, whatever 
 it might be in the next. He pitied these poor people in a dull, 
 stupid sort of way, much as a man might pity a poor savage 
 who was offered gold and flung it from him, not knowing its 
 value. He had, indeed, at times, a hazy idea that the Irish knew 
 the value of money very well, but that there was something 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 9 
 
 which they preferred to it, which they called conscience, and 
 which he called obstinacy. One thing, however, was certain — 
 he was bound to get converts. Converts meant money to him. 
 They were prized in the English soul-market at so much per head. 
 At one time, indeed, they were so estimated, but then the 
 head was for the halter, and there was little gain to be had 
 by those who secured the prize. Now times and customs were 
 changed, and the devil was quite ready to accommodate his 
 temptations to the advancement of civilization. 
 
 But if the temptation was altered, the cruelty was not lessened. 
 To hang a man out of hand for his religion was merciful com- 
 pared with the diabolical cruelty of standing beside him with 
 bread and gold while he was dying inch by inch of starvation. 
 The heathen invention of the torture of Tantalus was as a pun- 
 ishment for crime. It remained for the Bible-loving zealots of the 
 nineteenth century to invent another torture for the bodies and 
 souls of the ever-faithful Irish race. 
 
 The after-glow had passed; the last ray of sunlight had shot 
 down behind the distant mountains. The cold grey of evening 
 was fast settling into the gloom of night, a little silver streak of 
 light still being visible in the far depths of heaven, and one little 
 clear twinkling star, and still the tempting fiend was there. 
 
 The white-winged angels came and went with messages from 
 the Throne, and the Angel of Death hovered very close to the 
 departing athlete. He waited till the victory was perfected, till 
 the crown was won, till the power of soul and conscience had tri- 
 umphed in the face of the very weakness of death. Moments now 
 were indeed golden, as the sands of life trembled in the hour-glass 
 of time. Moments were being weighed against eternity. Sec- 
 onds were being counted against centuries. But there was no 
 sign of weakness of soul in all the weakness of body. With 
 every passing moment the angels rejoiced; with every passing 
 moment the demons scowled their hate and despair. And still 
 the tempter-fiend lingered. 
 
 That very day Mr. Blanders had received a letter from his 
 English employers, informing him of their extreme disgust at the 
 
IO FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 failure of his mission. They had, they said, treated him with 
 confidence ; they had supplied him with unlimited gold, and the 
 result had not been what they expected. The fault clearly must 
 be his, he had not used sufficient efforts to secure converts. 
 
 Reasoning from their own point of view these good people were 
 right. They looked on an Irish Catholic very much as they would 
 have looked on a Pagan. They had themselves no chobe about 
 religion so long as it was not " Popish. " If they had needed 
 wealth, and had been offered it on condition that they should ac- 
 cept any form of opinion, no matter how different from that which 
 they held at the moment, they would not have hesitated in their 
 choice. They could not, then, understand why those " ignorant 
 Irish' ' could have any choice — why, when they were dying of 
 starvation, they should prefer death to violating their consciences. 
 But, notwithstanding their wonder, the fact remained the same, 
 and they naturally blamed the person whom they employed to 
 effect the attainment of an end which, to them, would have 
 seemed so easy and so desirable. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders had read the letter. Mr. Blanders had a very 
 wholesome awe of that estimable individual. Mrs. Blanders had 
 used some very plain and very emphatic language that morning. 
 Mrs. Blanders had advised the partner of her joys and sorrows 
 not to return to the domestic roof-tree until he had " done some- 
 thing," and Mr. Blanders, model husband that he was, had a 
 habit of taking his wife's advice. 
 
 The letter which had caused this commotion in the Blanders 
 family had intimated that there was to be a great public meeting 
 in one month from that day, in Exeter Hall, London, and that 
 some thoroughly striking death-bed conversions from the errors 
 of Popery were wanted, and must be forthcoming. It was hard, 
 indeed, that it should be so difficult to procure, when so large a 
 sum of money was offered for it. It seemed, indeed, as if an Irish 
 conscience was the only thing which could not be purchased with 
 English gold, and the desired merchandise was appreciated ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 If a soul could not be purchased, a child could be rescued from 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. II 
 
 " Popery,* y and this, at least, ought not to be so difficult of accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders had some views of her own on this matter, as 
 she said, "if the worst comes to the worst." She had some 
 needy nephews and nieces. Could not one of them be purchased 
 as a sop to the Cerberus of English greed for Catholic souls ? One 
 great principle of the society was to ask no questions. Questions 
 were inconvenient. Besides, there was a large staff of officials in 
 England, connected with the society, whose income depended on 
 "something being done," and if a child was snatched as "a 
 brand from the burning," no very particular inquiries would be 
 made as to who the child was. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders said to herself " she would see " what could be 
 done. But she had her doubts as to the treatment the poor child- 
 ren received. Some ugly stories of neglect and cruelty had oozed 
 out, and she did not wish to subject any of her own kith and kin 
 to the tender mercies of the soul-destroyers if she could help it. 
 And she was a woman who generally did "help " what she chose 
 to happen. 
 
 Mr. Blanders' forte was not argument. He had been on the 
 " Home Mission," as his miserable calling was designated, too 
 long to have any doubt about the sincerity and piety of the Irish 
 people. He knew perfectly well that they did not worship the 
 Blessed Virgin, as his English patrons chose to assert. He knew 
 very well that they did not believe that the priest could give 
 them absolution beforehand for the sins they intended to commit. 
 Indeed, the failure of his own mission was one of the best proofs 
 of the blackness of this favorite calumny. Here were men all 
 around him dying of starvation ; and if the priest could give them 
 absolution for a future crime, or leave to commit a sin for so 
 •much money, why did they die of starvation, or live on a long, 
 lingering agony, when they could so easily have obtained relief? 
 
 Tim O'Halloran was not actually dying of starvation — he was 
 dying of famine-fever. He rented a large farm, and had been a 
 prosperous man in his day. When he brought his young wife 
 home, eight years ago, she was the envy of many a lass around 
 
12 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 Loch Lein, for she had secured the best match in the barony. 
 The farm was well worked ; there were rich, ripening fields of 
 grain, fair meadows, where the Kerry cow chewed the cud and 
 gave rich milk in abundance, as the farm-girl sang to her in the 
 dear old Celtic tongue. The potato had been an abundant 
 crop, and as sweet as Irish potatoes were until the blight came, 
 which seems to have altered even the very nature of the root. 
 
 But now all was changed, There were fields of untouched, 
 withered stalks rotting in the winter frost. The kine had long 
 since disappeared from the fair, green meadows. Tim O' Hallo- 
 ran was not the man to store his worldly goods when neighbors 
 and friends were dying for need of them. 
 
 A strong man takes long to die. The Scripture-reader still 
 stood his ground. While there was life there was hope. If he 
 could only get one word of assent his purpose would be accom- 
 plished; and if he could not get that word — well, he would see. 
 
 Tim O'Halloran turned his dying gaze on the wretched in- 
 truder. Even in his death agony the native courtesy could not 
 forsake him quite. 
 
 " I fear you're losing time, sir," he murmured, faintly; "the 
 priest will be here soon, and the priest will care for the boy." 
 
 But even as he said the words of hope, the heart of the dying 
 man was sore with apprehensions. His little Thade, his boy, 
 his treasure, his fair-haired lad, with the laughing eye of the 
 mother that was gone, and the winsome way of the wife that 
 never saw the anniversary of her wedding-day. 
 
 His little Thade. The boy lay sleeping heavily, wearily, on 
 the same straw on which his father lay dying. Poor little lad ! 
 he had been nurse and comforter to his poor father for weeks 
 now, faithful, untiring, with a rare thought and care beyond his 
 years. There was none else to do the little that could be done, 
 save Granny O'Halloran, the aged grandmother, who lived on, 
 as old folks do, through many a hard struggle, when the young 
 fall down and die by the wayside. 
 
 Granny was sleeping, too, in an inner room. In the early 
 hours of that day both had realized, for the first time, that father 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 13 
 
 must die. Father James had been there, and said what words he 
 could of comfort, and had given that which was beyond all 
 earthly comfort. 
 
 Mr. Blanders started for a moment when he heard the priest was 
 coming. He had had some encounters with that gentleman, in 
 which he had come off second best, and he was not anxious to 
 meet him at such a time and in such a place. But the case was 
 desperate, and the most timid men do desperate deeds when they 
 are between two fires. Mr. Blanders thought of Mrs. Blanders 
 — and waited. Of the father manifestly there was no hope ; by 
 some means, fair or foul, he must get the child. 
 
 He remembered Thade, and knew what he would be worth, 
 with good food and care. He was a child of much intelligence 
 and of fair presence; he was, in fact, just the very child the so- 
 ciety would prize. Mr. Blanders had not decided on any definite 
 plan of action for securing his prey, but he had great faith in 
 waiting. 
 
14 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FATHER JAMES. 
 
 Who, in the winter's night, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 When the cold blast did bite, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 Came to my cabin door, 
 And, on ray earthen floor, 
 Knelt by me, sick and poor, 
 
 Soggarth aroon. Banim. 
 
 A man of stately presence and of a native dignity all his own. 
 Care, and starvation, and heart-agony had bent the noble form, 
 had furrowed the open brow, and had added a touching, an al- 
 most beseeching pathos to the dignity. How could he see his 
 -children dying of hunger, and not share with them all but what 
 was necessary to keep the frail scabbard of the body together, so 
 that the soul might remain to do his Master's work a little longer. 
 
 It was the Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin, and 
 the whole church was crying out, with her, for the coming Deliv- 
 erer. He had said mass that morning with trembling hands 
 and breaking heart. With what tears, with what prayers, he 
 had cried out for his flock: " Come, O Lord ! come and deliver 
 them." There were worse evils than death to be feared for 
 them. Happy, indeed, were the dead ! 
 
 Bands of men had been parading the streets of the neighbor- 
 ing town the day previous, demanding food and threatening vio- 
 lence. Who could blame them ? Yet such open acts of vio- 
 lence were rare, and were more frequently inaugurated by 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 15 
 
 those who were in comparative comfort than by the patient suf- 
 ferers who were almost past all power of complaint. 
 
 Heartrending scenes had come before him. He had found a 
 poor mother on the roadside, almost unconscious, with a dead 
 babe in her arms and a dead child clinging to her skirts. She 
 was just so far on her road to tfoe poor-house when she fell in- 
 sensible, and but for the timely arrival of the priest she had died 
 as she lay. 
 
 He had been in a house where comfort and plenty once 
 reigned, and there he had found the living and the dead lying 
 together on the same bed of straw and covered with a piece of 
 old baize that had once been a table-cover. Yet everywhere 
 amongst these martyr people there was an inconceivable patience, 
 a supernatural charity, a sanctity altogether divine. And, in 
 truth, such patience and such charity could not be other than di- 
 vine, for the grace of God alone could have conferred it. 
 
 Father James had administered the last rites of the Church 
 that morning, as we have said, to Tim O'Halloran. The limbs 
 that were to move no more on earth were sealed and signed as 
 the Christian's own possession and property in heaven. Their 
 last weariness was nearly over; their last pain and ache was well 
 nigh passed. All the suffering here was soon to meet with its 
 rich reward on the golden shore. 
 
 But Father James had heard Tim's anxious prayer about his 
 boy. The brave man gladly faced death and bravely suffered 
 pain, but the great tears rolled down his poor pinched cheeks as 
 he spoke of Thade. * 
 
 What was to become of him ? The poor old granny had half 
 lost her wits from age, privation and grief. The neighbors were 
 scarce able to keep body and soul together, though more than 
 one of them, with unfailing Irish charity, had offered to take care 
 of the little lad. 
 
 Only the great and good priest could realize how hard Tim's 
 death-bed trial was. Only God knew how gloriously his faith 
 triumphed over his fears. 
 
 What could the priest say ? Thade was one of hundreds of 
 
1 6 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 orphans. He could do nothing; at best he could but try to see 
 him safe in the poor-house — that miserable substitute for the old 
 monastic houses, where the poor found all their wants supplied 
 by loving and tender hands — the poor-houses, lor which the poor 
 have to thank the licentious monster, Henry VIII. — the poor- 
 houses, which even the English Protestant poor so dread that 
 they often die in the utmost misery sooner than face its horrors. 
 
 So the only prospect for Thade was as dark as dark could be. 
 
 Father James knew, too, that the " soupers " had their eye on 
 him, but he did not know all that we do, or he would have had 
 a sharp lookout after the proceedings of these worthies. 
 
 Still he was anxious, and he determined to seeO'Halloran that 
 evening again, fearing, indeed, that in the morning he might find 
 only the frail tenement of clay. 
 
 He paused for a moment at the door and uttered the Master's 
 blessed salutation, * * Peace be to this house and to all who are 
 therein. , ' Truly there was peace, though it was the peace of 
 conflict. 
 
 Mr. Blanders started. 
 
 He had not calculated on this encounter, or, if he had, not even 
 his wholesome fear of the partner of his cares would have induced 
 him to remain. 
 
 The priest looked at him sternly, and exclaimed : 
 
 "Pray, sir, by what right, human or divine, do you dare to 
 intrude on my dying parishioner?" 
 
 Mr. Blanders hesitated for a moment, and then, being a bully, 
 as cowards generally are, he replied: 
 
 " By what right do you address me thus ?" 
 
 " By divine right, sir," replied the priest, " and by moral right. 
 By divine right, for this dying man is answerable to God, and not 
 to you, for the faith he professes; and you, you would dare to 
 come in his hour of weakness, and try to bribe him (I know your 
 foul devices), to go before his Maker with a lie. And by moral 
 right I command you to leave this house. You are here against 
 the will of this good m^n. His room is his property as much as 
 your room is yours. And what would you say to the person who 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 1 7 
 
 forced himself into your presence in your dying moments against 
 your will? Is there one law for the poor and another for the 
 rich?" 
 
 Mr. Blanders looked round nervously. He was very anxious 
 to remain. He knew the priest had little time to spare, and what 
 a proud letter he could write to his English employers if he could 
 say that he had defied the priest and remained beside the dying 
 man, "preaching the gospel " to him to his last breath. 
 
 "Father!" 
 
 The word was breathed so low by the dying man, that it 
 needed, indeed, the ear of a father to catch the sound. But the 
 priest was well used to patient listening, to tender lingering by 
 dying beds when the failing breath gives forth such sounds that 
 only accustomed ears could tell their import. 
 
 "Father!" 
 
 It was here — it was in the death agony — it was in the supreme 
 moment of human anguish which must come to all, that the bless- 
 edness of an office like his can be best understood ! 
 
 The priest turned quickly to the dying man, and bent over him 
 with a more than ordinary compassion. 
 
 " Father, for God's sake drive that devil away. He wants to 
 buy my child; he wants — " 
 
 "I know, I understand. He shall go, and I promise you, in 
 the name of God, that I will take care of Thade, and that you 
 shall die in peace." 
 
 The priest had spoken loud enough for Mr. Blanders to hear 
 him. He now turned to him. 
 
 " There is the door, sir, and if you do not leave the house in- 
 stantly, I will obtain the assistance of the police to expel you 
 from it ; and I shall have the place watched to-night, to prevent 
 your further intrusion." 
 
 The Scripture-reader thought discretion the better part of 
 valor. There was only one point on which his employer required 
 any special discretion from him. He was particularly desired 
 not to let his proceedings come before the public when there might 
 be any appearance of intrusion. 
 
18 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 It was evident, even to the dull comprehension of the " Society 
 for the Conversion of Irish Papists, ' ' that it would tell badly indeed 
 if it were known that they forced their Bibles or their agents on 
 those who were unwilling to receive them. It was no matter 
 what was done privately — that was " a triumph of the Gospel." 
 
 Marvellous infatuation of heresy and unbelief ! These very 
 people, who were forever accusing Catholics of subterfuge and 
 falsehood, put no limit to their own falsehoods and subterfuges, 
 and rejoiced in deeds of the blackest treachery and bribery.* 
 
 Then the priest once more gave the dying penitent the last 
 absolution; and after he had called Granny to keep such watch 
 as she could until he could send a protector, he left the cottage 
 sadly. 
 
 Tim soon after fell into the heavy stupor of death. Granny 
 watched by him, saying her beads and rocking herself to and fro, 
 in a scarcely less heavy stupor of grief. Poor Granny ! It was 
 well, indeed, that her faculties were so dull and blunted by a 
 life of much sorrow and by months of starvation. The morning 
 came, but the straggling beams of the December sun shone on 
 two corpses. Granny had passed away to her long last rest, dy- 
 ing with her beads in her hand. 
 
 The lad whom the priest had hoped to have sent to guard the 
 family from the intrusion of soupers had not been able to come. 
 When he arrived in the morning he found there was no living 
 soul to care. Tim O'Halloran and his aged mother were in the 
 keeping of the holy angels. 
 
 Little Thade had disappeared. 
 
 *It is true that much of this curious process of "converting the Irish " has 
 been discarded, but the reader must not for one moment suppose that it is 
 entirely abandoned. At this very moment active proselytizing is going on in 
 seme parts of Ireland, and it is carried out with a degree of shameless dishon- 
 esty which is scarcely credible. I know of my own personal knowledge in- 
 stances of this proselytizing. Within the last few weeks a Galway priest has 
 called attention, in the public papers, to a gross case of proselytism — a young 
 girl having been actually detained forcibly in Protestant establishments, 
 where she was kept without food from Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday, 
 because she refused to eat meat. So much for Protestant "liberty of con- 
 science." 
 
DR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 19 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 HOW THADE WAS LOST AND FOUND. 
 
 Wait, my country, and be wise; 
 Rest and sleep, and thou shalt rise, 
 And tread down thine enemies. 
 
 " Heard the news, father?" 
 
 rt More deaths, I suppose, Kate; there is little else now." 
 
 But Kate's expression of combined amusement and vexation 
 did not indicate so serious a matter. 
 
 " Little Thade O'Halloran has disappeared." 
 
 "Soupers!" exclaimed Mr. O'Grady, and then he ''said a 
 swear." 
 
 Excuse him; he was not in the habit of using strong language. 
 
 " I saw Father James after mass this morning, and he told me 
 Mick Moriarty had been to Dunn's farm before daybreak. Poor 
 Tim was dead, and Granny O'Halloran was lying dead beside 
 him; but Thade was nowhere to be seen. He called for him and 
 searched for him everywhere." 
 
 " It's that confounded Blanders woman," roared irascible Mr. 
 O'Grady, " as sure as — as my name's Miles O'Grady." 
 
 " Easy said, father, but who's to prove it ?" 
 
 "I'll take the law of them; I'll prosecute — I'll expose the 
 whole seed and breed of them, as sure as — " 
 
 " My name's Miles O'Grady !" exclaimed a lad of some four- 
 teen summers, who came into the breakfast-room, apparently for 
 the express purpose of continuing his father's sentence. 
 
 " You young dog ! you'' 11 have the law taken of you some day 
 if you haven't more respect for your elders." 
 
20 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 But it was no use to scold him, for neither father nor sister 
 could keep anger long with the bright, joyous lad, whose very 
 presence made sunshine in the house. 
 
 Mr. Miles O'Grady had been for many years a friend of Tim 
 O'Halloran 's. It is true they held very different positions in 
 life. Tim O'Halloran was but a farmer, and, though he was 
 universally respected, he never tried nor desired to raise himself 
 to any higher station. Mr. O'Grady belonged to an old family 
 of high respectability, and in Kerry, where " blood " is held in 
 special honor, his descent counted for much. 
 
 His worldly position was not one which, under other circum- 
 stances, would have entitled him to hold the position he did. But 
 he was one of the — we had almost said few — Irishmen who, at 
 that period, had the common sense to prefer an honest employ- 
 ment, however humble, to idleness and fancied respectability. 
 He had made acquaintance with Tim O'Halloran when engaged 
 in his occupation of road inspector. Tim's troubles had touched 
 him, for Mr. O'Grady had lost his own wife a few months before 
 his humble friend had suffered a similar affliction. 
 
 When Tim found himself dying, he sent a message to the 
 "master," as he always called Mr. O'Grady, but the message 
 had not been received. Messengers were hard to find in those 
 days of dire tribulation, and it not unfrequently happened that 
 the messenger fell himself by the way and died as he fell, or was 
 carried to a fever-shed. Thos>e who once entered those miserable 
 substitutes for home care rarely came forth again to tell the 
 world the tale of suffering and neglect. 
 
 " Well, father, have some breakfast, and then you can see 
 Father James, and — " 
 
 But Miles O'Grady was not the man to sit down, even to the 
 poor breakfast he allowed himself — for he could not feast while 
 others fasted — while he thought the child of his dead friend was 
 in clanger of body or soul. He had scarcely heard his daughter's 
 request; his hat was on, and he was looking in every direction 
 for his stick. 
 
 But Miles Junior had abstracted that formidable instrument, in 
 compliance with an ocular hint from his sister. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 21 
 
 When Miles O'Grady's blood was up he was apt to use stnk- 
 mg arguments, and, in the present instance, a breach of the peace 
 would have been anything but desirable. 
 
 For once discretion had the ascendant, and he proceeded to 
 Father James' modest residence, cooler thoughts having suggested 
 this as a wiser proceeding than the general and particular on- 
 slaught which he had meditated on the Blanders family. 
 
 Father James could give no information beyond the facts al- 
 ready known. He advised caution, with a very decided misgiv- 
 ing that his advice would be utterly lost on the person on whom 
 it was bestowed. 
 
 But he also advised energetic measures, an advice which was 
 scarcely necessary. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders was sitting in her parlor, not counting out her 
 money, like the traditional queen in the traditional story, but she 
 was doing what was, perhaps, quite as pleasant. She was count- 
 ing up the probable gain of a rather dirty transaction which had 
 employed her in the early hours of the morning of that day. 
 
 Her revene was interrupted, 
 
 " Please, mum, there's a gintleman at the door won't give no 
 name, and wants to see you." 
 
 Mrs. Blanders was quite prepared to have any number of gen- 
 tlemen call that morning. She had rather expected the police. 
 
 " Show the gentleman in, Ellen," and she hastened to the 
 door herself. It was no policy of hers to keep any one waiting 
 that day. 
 
 For once Mr. Miles O' Grady was — as he expressed it himself— 
 "taken aback." 
 
 Mrs. Blanders offered him a seat with the utmost politeness, 
 and waited with a masterly assumption of anxiety and deference 
 to hear what he had to say. The consequence was, as she had 
 anticipated, that Mr. Miles O'Grady found it very difficult indeed 
 to know how to begin. 
 
 To have "pitched into a fellow head foremost " would have 
 been simple, even if it had not been politic; but to confront an 
 exceedingly civil woman with any remark that was not civil was 
 by no means so easy a proceeding as he had anticipated. 
 
22 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 Mr. O' Grady took the seat so politely offered him. He laid 
 his hat on the floor, he took it up, he put it down again; he 
 consulted the inside of it, and for once in his life he wished him- 
 self a hundred miles from where he was. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders enjoyed the situation, but she was not the woman 
 to allow the little sense of the ridiculous with which she was 
 gifted to interfere with the stern business of life. 
 
 She had not the slightest intention of committing herself by 
 speaking. But the silence was broken by an interruption for 
 which neither were prepared. The eldest son of the Blanders 
 family dashed unexpectedly into the room, and not seeing or not 
 heeding the stranger, roared out: 
 
 " I say, ma, that boy will make the sign — " 
 
 But Mrs, Blanders, though stunned for the moment, was equal 
 to the occasion. A less diplomatic woman would have hustled 
 the boy angrily out of the room, and betrayed herself and her 
 secret, past denial. 
 
 Not so the astute "souper's " wife. 
 
 For deeds, she merely pressed the foot of her eldest hope in a 
 manner he perfectly understood, and which made him quail not 
 a little for the probable sequel ; for words she said : ' ' My dear, 
 where are your manners ? You can tell me about your little 
 brother's fancy about these signs another time — free-mason 
 signs," she said, coolly turning to Mr. O'Grady. " These boys of 
 mine have taken a fancy they have found out some great 
 mystery." 
 
 Mr. O'Grady was not deceived. He suspected now, more 
 strongly than ever, that ThadeO'Halloran was in the house, but 
 even he was well aware that suspicion and proof were very 
 different matters in the eyes of the law. 
 
 His courage was restored, however, by the barefaced lie, and he 
 opened his mission, if not with as much tact as he had intended, 
 at least with straightforwardness, which has often a greater 
 success. 
 
 "You are aware, no doubt, Mrs. Blanders, that little Thade 
 O'Halloran has disappeared. I called here to inquire—" 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 23 
 
 But he was not allowed to finish his sentence. 
 
 " Really missing, poor boy ! how kind of you. But you know 
 he does not belong to our church, and though, of course, we are 
 interested in all our neighbors, you cannot expect us to give you 
 any information on this subject." 
 
 "Excuse me, madam; I think your son has given me a little 
 information just now." 
 
 " No ! really, you don't say so. How rejoiced I shall be if the 
 dear boy is found through our means. Thade O'Halloran — ah, 
 yes, I think I heard yesterday from my* husband that the poor 
 father was very ill." 
 
 The "dear boy " had left the room in obedience to another 
 silent and expressive caution from his mother, before Mr. O'Grady 
 had spoken. 
 
 Mr. O'Grady could scarcely bring himself to say hard words 
 to any woman, and the air of interest and innocence was so well 
 assumed, that a wiser head might have been perplexed how to act. 
 
 " Your husband was at O'Halloran' s last night; he was met 
 there by Father James, and was ordered by him to leave the 
 house. You will be so good as to remember that this can be 
 proved in court if necessary; and, further, it can be proved that 
 
 the de , I mean your husband, offered O'Halloran any sum of 
 
 money if he would give up the boy to him, and offered to make a 
 gentleman of the poor child if he would renounce his faitn. 
 Pretty gentleman, indeed," he muttered to himself. 
 
 Something very like a scuffle was heard at this moment on the 
 stairs, and Mrs. Blanders felt assured that the sooner she had her 
 visitor off the premises the better. She knew that to insult his 
 clergyman was the surest way to excite his anger, and if, in his 
 anger, he used threatening language to her, she could the sooner 
 rid herself of his presence. 
 
 "Ah, yes, your clergyman, you say; but now excuse me, my 
 dear sir, do you really believe all these priests tell you?" and 
 she smiled a smile of confidential inquiry. "It is all very well 
 for the lower classes, who must be kept in some kind of order; 
 but, you know, a gentleman in your position — " 
 
24 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 << Madam, I—" 
 
 " Pray, sir, don't misunderstand me. I know you must ap- 
 pear to a — well, to a heretic, as you call me (the noise on th« 
 stairs was becoming louder every moment) to believe all this 
 folly; but zve know different," she continued, regardless of gram- 
 mar, " and in courts of law, at least in England, no one would 
 believe a priest (she glanced covertly at Mr. O'Grady's expres- 
 sive countenance and saw stronger words were needed to drive 
 him out of the house), or these wretched victims of priestcraft. ,, 
 
 " If you were a man," exclaimed Mr. O'Grady, with an indig- 
 nation almost too strong for words; ^ut apparently he thought 
 words useless or not sufficiently forcible. He stood up, said no 
 more, walked out of the house with at least an expressed resolve 
 to have no more to do with women, and evinced his excitement 
 by a slam of the door which made the house tremble. 
 
 A lad passing by, who had not had all the buovance of youth 
 crushed out of him by famine, shouted "souper," and added 
 considerably to Mr. O'Grady's ire. 
 
 As he went down the street he met Father James, who was a 
 man of few words. 
 
 " Well, sir?" 
 
 "Well, sir," replied Mr. O'Grady, "I saw the woman; and 
 faith, sir, I'll never face a woman again, as sure as my name's 
 Miles O'Grady!" 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKEK. 2J 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHE BIAXDERS FAMILY AT HCME. 
 
 sold us and - 
 Betra; I lied; 
 
 But we stood up before them 
 
 - 
 
 '•It's :: no use, Kate; the boy's in the house as sure as my 
 
 's — " 
 
 Miles O'Grady was very angry. It was too much for his 
 
 equanimity to have been so ignominious a woman, 
 
 but I I the look of am which his 
 
 isseveration had provoked in K. Jing eye. 
 
 "What is to be done?" she inquired, without noticing her 
 father's pause. "I suppose you could scarcely bring the case 
 court.' 1 
 
 * ; Faith, an 1 t ye might .-.- !:-.::» 
 
 coort as the like o* they." exclaimed Mick McGrath, who had 
 
 been an uninvited listener to the conversation. ■• Sure, a baker's 
 
 dozen of the jurymen would be on their side. Glory be to 
 
 . but some ot the gen! the wrong cross on them. ? ' 
 
 "Andwl thinking o:'?'' asked Mr. O'Grady, i 
 
 suspected Mick had a plan in his head. 
 
 " Faith, sir. 1 was thinking * of nothing,' is me grandmother 
 said, when — ,5 
 
 But the occasion on which Mick's grandmother made the 
 noteworthy observati futurity. 
 
 Father James had just entered the room unannounced, and a 
 serious consultation followed as to the t 36 to be pursued 
 
 under the circumstances. 
 
fc6 FROM KILLARXEY TO NEW YORK: 
 
 "We have wealth and power against us, but we have God 
 with us," he said, " and do not for one moment doubt that the 
 father's dying faith will be abundantly rewarded." 
 
 " I am certain Mick has some wild scheme in his head," ob- 
 served Kate; "I only hope it will not make matters worse than 
 they are already." 
 
 Mr. O'Grady rose and rang the belL 
 
 '• I will caution him — this is no time for acts of imprudence, 
 however well intended. 
 
 " Tell Mick he is wanted, and to come at once." 
 
 " 'Deed, sir," replied the girl, who had answered the sum- 
 mons, "he's just gone out the back way, and he tould me not 
 to keep dinner waitin' for him, for he was goin' to live at the ex- 
 pense ov government, as it was nothin' to do and good pay for 
 it. He would not be 'listin', sure, sir ?" she added, half crying, 
 for there had been some little tendernesses between Mick and 
 Kitty. 
 
 Mr. O'Grady and Father James rose simultaneously. It was 
 clear Mick was up to something, and he was not exactly the 
 person to conduct difficult and delicate negotiations. 
 
 It may be noticed, nevertheless, that mother wit often suc- 
 ceeds where man's wisdom fails; and Pat has a knack of succeed- 
 ing when he takes any subject to heart. 
 
 In the meantime, poor little golden haired Thade was, to use 
 a graphic Irish expression, " supping sorrow." 
 
 " You have got the boy now," observed Mr. Blanders with a 
 much of a tone of triumph as he dared to use; " and I should 
 like to know what you are going to do with him." 
 
 Mrs. Blanders would have liked a little enlightenment on this 
 subject herself, but she was not going to lessen her prestige by 
 admitting the fact. 
 
 "I think when I caught the bird you might cage it," she re- 
 plied, with a decision proportioned to her own state of mental 
 perplexity. " But it's just like you. How do you expect the 
 society to go on paying you, if you sit all day with your hands 
 before you and do nothing ?" 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 2f 
 
 The charge was scarcely true, for Mr. Blanders spent the 
 greater part of the day in personal exercise. He had two good 
 reasons. One was that he was bound " to do good in season and 
 out of season," according to the terms of his agreement with his 
 employers. The other reason was that, though he found a 
 warmer reception than he bargained for when he went on his 
 thankless mission, the warmth of his reception at the domestic 
 hearth was often still more embarrassing. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Bland ;rs?" 
 
 Mr. Blanders had a happy knack of abstracting himself from 
 exterior affairs when he was not desirous of attending to them. 
 He was at the moment occupied in studying some abstruse 
 problem which appeared to have absorbed itself into a crack in 
 the ceiling. 
 
 "Very well, Mr. Blanders, very good, sir; but you need not put 
 on your pious airs with your wife. We had better use plain 
 words and come to a plain understanding." (When Mrs. 
 Blanders elected to use " plain words," Mr. Blanders knew the 
 time for action had arrived, and quailed accordingly. ) " Do you 
 intend to support your wife and family, or do you not ? That's 
 what /call a plain question, sir; and I want a plain answer." 
 
 "Well, really, Liza, you're too — " 
 
 " I'm too good for you, sir, if that's what you mean. Here 
 am I losing my time, and every moment precious, waiting the 
 last two hours to hear one word of sense from you." 
 
 "I," faintly murmured Mr. Blanders. 
 
 " I want no I's, sir; Pve had enough of you, goodness knows, 
 with your I's. If you'd keep your eyes open, and do something 
 for the good of your family — " 
 
 "My dear—" 
 
 "I'm not your dear, and I don't want any of your soft solder 
 on me, though goodness knows your're dear enough to me," she 
 muttered, with a grim jocularity which Mr. Blanders had learned 
 to know and respect. 
 
 " If you would allow me to speak — " 
 
 "Allow you to speak I Well, Mr. Blanders, that's rather too 
 
2% FROM KILLARNEY TO KEW YORK; 
 
 much for any poor woman's feelings Here I am for the last two 
 hours imploring you to speak. But never mind, sir, never mind. 
 Mr. Blanders, was it for this you led me to the hymeneal altar 
 and made your vows, which are worth about as much as the 
 poor Papists' that you perjure every day when you make them 
 swear that they forsake the errors of Popery for those of the 
 blessed Reformation ? But I'll say no more, sir." 
 
 And Mrs. Blanders subsided, having lost her breath, and really 
 having nothing more to say. 
 
 She seated herself in a large and somewhat ancient easy-chair, 
 assumed the air of an injured saint and martyr combined, and 
 put on an attitude of patient attention to any observations which 
 her husband might make, which would have been quite sufficient 
 to drive any idea out of the head of any human being subjected 
 to the process. 
 
 When Mrs. Blanders had determined to say no more, her hus- 
 band was strongly tempted to observe that she had said enough, 
 and at least to hint at the difficulty of making the observations 
 she so much desired to hear, but long years of experience had 
 taught him prudence, and he refrained. 
 
 But on this occasion Mr. Blanders was obliged to admit that 
 his wife's conversation was more desirable than her silence, as he 
 had not the slightest idea what course to pursue, and he dared not 
 even hint that his wife was in a similar predicament. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders was not slow in pronouncing an opinion when 
 she had an opinion to give; and the occasions were rare indeed, 
 in which she did not consider this opinion infallible. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME. A BANKER. 29 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ELLEN MALONEY'S CONVERSION, AS REPORTED BY MRS. BLAND- 
 
 ERS. 
 
 Faith is the spirit and life in the world. 
 
 De Vere. 
 
 "If it's wantin' to see the masther you are, Pm thinkin' I'd 
 better tell the misthress,' r observed the Blanders 3 maid-of-all- 
 work, not without a twinkle of humor in her eye. 
 
 " Oh, faith, Miss, it's all the same tome, masther or misthress> 
 if they'll do me business handy." 
 
 "Maybe it's convarsion you want; it's cheap at the money now y 
 I'm thinkin', for they're few and far between, like the masther's 
 good words, " the latter part of the observation being made hi 
 a lower key. 
 
 Poor Ellen Maloney ! She was a " famine orphan," and had 
 been thankful to get a bit and sup in the hard times in return for 
 her services. She was told often enough in the day that she was 
 idle and lazy, and that she did not pay for her keeping. But 
 Ellen listened to it all, and let it pass by like the summer breeze 
 —listened to it as she listened to the denunciations of Popery 
 which greeted her ears periodically* 
 
 Ellen was hard -working, industrious and cleanly, as Mrs. Bland- 
 ers knew perfectly well when she took her into her disorderly 
 and ^thriftless Household; but it was not every day that the ser- 
 vices of so efficient a girl were to be secured gratis. Ellen had 
 compromised matters in a strange fashion with her uneducated 
 conscience. She had stoutly refused to be converted. She had 
 refused, with equal determination, to attend "family prayers," 
 or the master's church; but she did not go to mass or to her re» 
 ligious duties. She had, indeed, gone to the church and knelt 
 before the altar, with many tears and sobs, "to bid God Al- 
 
3© FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 mighty good -by" till better times should come, and then went her 
 way to service, let us hope little knowing the sin she was com- 
 mitting. It may be supposed that Ellen had very little desire to in- 
 crease the number of the '•'mission" proselytes, but if she had 
 made any active opposition to their increase it would have been 
 found out, and she was silent. 
 
 Ellen's conversion had been paraded with great triumph by her 
 employers. Mr. Blanders, under correction of Mrs. Blanders, or, 
 to speak precisely, at her dictation, had written a touching report. 
 
 It was composed with an air of — shall we say assurance or deci- 
 sion ? — which was the result of the undeniable facts that existed, 
 that Ellen was under their roof, and that she had been a Catholic. 
 They had few converts, indeed, of whom they could boast so 
 safely; and they made the most of their advantage. 
 
 "I have to report a wonderful instance of the success of our mis- 
 sion, and of our unworthy efforts to spread the Gospel amongst 
 this benighted people. Ellen Maloney, a young girl of attractive 
 appearance and engaging manners, [" What do you want, Ellen?"' 
 the attractive girl had just opened the door, and rather belied the 
 description. " Go away, go away; I cannot be interrupted now. 
 Where were we, Mr. Blanders? Really, that girl is a perfect 
 nuisance — at engaging manners — oh, yes. Well, you can put 
 next"] has been brought to see the fearful errors and pagan doc- 
 trines in which she has been brought up. When she first saw a 
 Bible her astonishment was unbounded, and she rapturously 
 seized the precious volume ["and committed it to the flames,'' 1 
 muttered Mr. Blanders; " I saw her; she said if she wanted a 
 Bible she could buy one that was the real thing."] Since it 
 came into her possession we have constantly found her poring 
 over its pages. [ "She can't read two words," soliloquized Mr. 
 Blanders, but a good deal sot to voce,] She is familiar already 
 with the names of all the prophets and kings in the old Testa- 
 ment, ["My dear, you really must try to get her to learn sonic- 
 thing. If the Rev. Antony Blarney comes down here to inspect 
 the mission he will certainly question her, and it will be very un- 
 pleasant if she cannot answer him properly,"] and we note a 
 marked improvement in her way of expressing herself on relig- 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 3 1 
 
 Ions subjects. Our dear children, who have, of course, been well 
 taught Gospel truths, are having a share in the blessed work 
 of her instruction, and have taught her [the eldest hope being 
 present, and hearing himself mentioned inclusively, observes, 
 "Ma, do you know that I heard Ellen teaching Tommy what 
 she said was a text out of the Bible about Mary: ' Hail Mary, full 
 of grace ' it was, or something like that, and you said one day it 
 was bad to say it, and how can it be bad if it's in the Bible ?" 
 The inquiring mind receives, however, a severe shock in the un- 
 pleasant form of a blow on the side of the head, and a recom- 
 mendation to mind his own business, which — the result of not 
 attending to a similar recommendation on other occasions being 
 vividly remembered — he proceeded to do without further remark] 
 some simple Scripture narratives. We have taken this young 
 person into the house at serious inconvenience to ourselves, but 
 for a work of such importance we are prepared to make every 
 sacrifice, ["Had you not better say something about compensa- 
 tion ? Those who live by the Gospel, you know." " I will 
 not say anything about compensation, Mr. Blanders. Hold your 
 tongue and write what you are told."] and, of course, in the 
 painful state of the times and the high prices of provisions, every 
 additional mouth in a household is a heavy additional expense. 
 It was also necessary that we should protect her from the violence 
 of the mob, who, instigated by the priests, were prepared to 
 murder the happy girl. ["My dear, if inquiries are made about this 
 — really, now, you know it is a little strong." It was a little 
 strong, considering that there was not even a substratum of sand 
 on which to build the house of cards. " If inquiries are made, Mr. 
 Blanders, you can refer them to ME, and I hope I shall know how 
 to answer them. You will be so good as to remember that you 
 are writing of what would have happened if we had not given 
 the young person the shelter and protection of our roof." Mr. 
 Blanders thought he was writing (from dictation) of what had hap- 
 pened, but he subsided and continued.] If we have no other 
 fruit to show of our long and weary labors, the conversion of 
 Ellen Maloney would be sufficient to compensate for a large 
 outlay of time and money; but there is no doubt whatever that 
 
72 FKOM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK,' 
 
 her conversion will have an immense effect, as the excitement it 
 has caused is prodigious. Largely increased funds may now be 
 entrusted to us with every prospect of a return which will fuii/ 
 repay the outlay. These funds shouM be supplied as promptly as 
 possible, as I need scarcely call your attention to the fact that 
 unless we act at the moment when the people are ready to receive 
 our words, there will not be the same hope of success/' 
 
 " Anything more, my dear?" 
 
 "I think not. Stay ! you had better mention that we do not 
 purpose sending this young girl to the Hawk's Nest at present;, 
 she will be perfectly safe here, and my wife will take care that 
 she is not tampered with by her former associates. We have, in 
 fact, thought it well to give her some light occupation in our 
 small family, to occupy her mind, as she cannot be always en- 
 gaged in Bible lessons. My wife has read some portions of this, 
 report for her. Her expressions of gratitude are unbounded, and 
 she would express them herself if we- allowed her, only we 
 fear that she would write too strongly about the little we have- 
 done for her; and the expense we have had m the matter seems 
 to weigh heavily on her sensitive conscience, though we have- 
 assured her that we shall be fully repaid by the kind gentlemen 
 who take such an interest in the benighted Irish race. She is 
 constantly exclaiming: * Without money and without price — 
 without money and without price ;' and contrasting my dear wife's 
 disinterested generosity with the grasping and avaricious spirit 
 of the Church she has left- She assures us that the priest re- 
 fused to give what they call the rites of the Church to her poor 
 mother, when she was dying of starvation, because she had no- 
 money to give him."* 
 
 Such is the history of the girl whom we have kept too long in 
 conversation at Mr. Blanders' hall-door. 
 
 *Such calumnies are circulated even at the present day, to the writer's own 
 knowledge. Soon after the writer of this story was received into the Catholic 
 Church, an educated and liberal-minded Protestant gentleman asked her 
 seriously, and not in any spirit of bigotry or 'prejudice,, how much she paid the- 
 priest every time she went to confession. Soupers and so-called converts 
 know perfectly well that these calumnies are base lies, but it answers their 
 purpose to circulate them. If Protestants knew the truth about Catholic 
 teaching there would be many converts; hence the devil has a special and 
 very deep interest in keeping them in ignorance. 
 
OR, KOW TKADE BECAME A BANKER. 3j 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 BACK AT THE HALL-DOOR. 
 
 But fixed as fate her altars stand, 
 
 Unchanged, like God, her faith. De Verk 
 
 ** Well, my good man, what do you want ?" 
 
 Mick scratched his head — a not unfrequent, though wholly 
 unaccountable source of information to the Irish mind. 
 
 "They're hard times, miss," replied Mick, after a moment's 
 pause. He did not want to commit himself in a hurry. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders began to have some -suspicions that there was 
 something in Mick's visit beyond what was apparent on the sur- 
 face, and acted accordingly. 
 
 " You are Mr. O'Grady's man," she said, rather as an asser- 
 tion than as an inquiry. There was not a man, woman or child 
 for twenty miles round the country whom she did not know by 
 sight. 
 
 "Thrue for ye, miss. I was his man, anyway; which puts me 
 thinkin' of the English gentleman that asked Jim Murphy to sell 
 him yesterday's paper, and he tould him he couldn't, because he 
 sold it to a Scotchman last week." 
 
 Mrs. Blanders was for once fairly perplexed. What did the 
 man want, and why did he not say what he wanted ? He did 
 not look poor enough to be purchasable, and he had had a good 
 place with Mr. O'Grady for several years. 
 
 It would not do, certainly, to lose a "convert," but it would 
 not do, either, to find herself the victim of some wild scheme of 
 reprisals, such as had often been threatened, and such as she had 
 
34 FROM KXLLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 every reason to apprehend. Indeed, the depression of the famine 
 year alone had saved her. 
 
 It was wit against wit, and caution against caution. 
 
 " I think I'd better step inside, miss, if it's plaisin* to you, as 
 Noah said to the little fishes that was swimmm* round the ark." 
 
 Mrs. Blanders. assented with a sour smile at the man's attempt 
 at wit. She had, indeed, observed that he looked restlessly up 
 and down the street while thisshort conversation was being carried 
 on, and that gave her some hope that she had landed a prize. 
 
 "Well, now, my good man, what is it you do want ?' r inquired 
 Mrs. Blanders, with an attempt at amiability which was far more 
 repulsive than her most savage moods. 
 
 "Sure, miss, I'm thinkin* of emigratin ? to America — after a 
 bit, you know," he added quickly, seeing the information did 
 not appear very acceptable to Mrs. Blanders; "an r I heard tell 
 there was good livin' an* good wages for a poor boy up in Dublin 
 that wouldn't be too particular about his religion^ and that your- 
 self is the lady that would help a boy to turn an honest penny — 
 and his coat along with it," he muttered to himself. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders' mind was quick when business was concerned* 
 and she began to think how she could best utilize the circum- 
 stances which, she believed, Providence had thrown in her way. 
 
 She mistrusted the man with a woman's keen instinct, and she 
 did not like to be called " miss;" but we must do her the justice 
 to say that she never allowed any personal dislikes or private 
 feelings to interfere with her business. 
 
 "But why did you leave Mr. O'Grady ?" 
 
 " Faith,, miss, I dunno, if it wasn't the change -fa ver came over 
 me. He' 11 wot know where I'm gone, any way, " he continued, 
 but rather as a soliloquy than as. an observation addressed to his 
 interrogator. 
 
 " Did you know a boy of the O'Hallorans' ?" 
 
 u Is it a boy of the O'Hallorans', miss?" replied Mick, avail- 
 ing himself of the Celtic propensity to reply to- a question by 
 repeating it. 
 
 But Mrs. Blanders gave him no assistance. And, moreover, 
 he was aware that she was. watching him very closeLy. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 35 
 
 *' A boy of the O'Hallorans', is it, miss? Sure, me "hearing's 
 got bad with the potatoes. But maybe," he said, brightening 
 up as if with a sudden and happy inspiration, and with the most 
 charming assumption of a desire to exert his memory to the very 
 utmost, " to oblige the lady " — "maybe, miss, you're meaning 
 the boy that gave the English gentleman the quare answer — the 
 fair-haired chap, you know, that went to Australy last winter. 
 Maybe you heard what he said, miss," he continued, with a des- 
 perate effort to get himself out of his entanglement. He looked 
 up at Mrs. Blanders for a moment, but her face was a perfect 
 blank. She meant, at all events, to let him have his say. She 
 could afford to wait. Her plan was formed; and the more she 
 saw of her eccentric visitor, the better^ before she developed it. 
 
 "It's the way, miss. There was a lot of chaps working up at 
 the church, you mind, there near Muckross domain, an' a lot of 
 English chaps — great swells, you know — with their hi's and their 
 h'ands, comes along, and walks round everything, for all the 
 world as if they were paying God Almighty a compliment for 
 looking at the beauties of nature and art: and then they ups 
 and they goes to them, and one chap gave the wink to another, 
 and the other nudged the next chap, that they'd have some fun 
 out of them Oirish fellows. An' as luck id have it, who should 
 they light on but the boy ov the O'Hallorans' — the devil's luck 
 they had— I mane as them blackguard Saxons, savin' your 
 presence, miss, always has. An' one of them swaggers up to 
 him, puffin' himself out like a Kerry aigle conversin' with a pert 
 sparrow, an' he says, condescendin' like, but with a big sneer 
 on his ugly mouth: 
 
 ; ' ' What are you doing, my man?' 
 
 "'Makin' mortbar, sir,' says O'Halloran; * an' maybe its 
 your eyes you left in England,' he says to himself; but the 
 other gentlemen heerd him, and they signed the Englishman to 
 go on. 
 
 " ' And pray, what is this building going to be ?' 
 
 " ' A church, sir,' says O'Halloran, an' he workin' away at the 
 morthar, and never a look up he gives at all, at all, but just 
 
36 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 shovin' away at what was before him, an* mixin' nicer than ever 
 the parson did his twelfth tumbler of punch. 
 
 " ' Oh, a church — really, now. And pray, a — what a — denom- 
 ination does it belong to ?' 
 
 " ' It doesn't belong to no nomination at all, sir; it's for the 
 Holy Roman Catholic Church. ' 
 
 " Then all the other chaps gives a laugh you might hear over 
 to the aigle'snest, and the chap that was spakuV got quite huffed 
 like, an' he says: 
 
 " * Then I'm sorry to hear it.' 
 
 " ' Faith, sir,' says O'Halloran, an' he spoke up pretty loud, 
 * an' that's just what the divil says,' an' the other chaps roared 
 at this. You might a heerd them over beyond the mountains at 
 Kenmare, let alone at Adrigoole." 
 
 A sense of the ridiculous was not one of Mrs. Blanders' mental 
 gifts, and she scarcely took in the point of the joke. Indeed, 
 the cares of a family like hers, and an income held by a very un- 
 certain tenure, might have dulled the wits of a brighter woman. 
 Nor did she very much concern herself about the broad hit at her 
 religion. Her religion, so far as she could be said to have any, 
 was to provide for her family — to keep her household, husband 
 included, in order. 
 
 But the evening was closing in, and something should be done 
 with this loquacious individual. For once Mrs. Blanders was 
 relieved when the door opened and Mr. Blanders entered the 
 untidy apartment. 
 
 "Mornin', your honor," said Mike, with an utter and callous 
 disregard of the time of day. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders volunteered an explanation. 
 
 "This is a — -I believe — a person — a man, in fact — " 
 
 " Yes, your honor, I'm a man," said Mick, without moving a 
 muscle. 
 
 "Who wants, I think, to a — change — in fact, to improve his 
 condition." 
 
 "The lady's just puttin' the case neat and elegant, as the 
 devil said when he put the last nail in the sou — (Lord help you 
 
OR, HOW TRADE BECAME A BANKER. 37 
 
 to hould your tongue for an omadhawn; you'll put your foot in 
 it before you're done, anyhow," observed Mick to himself.) 
 " Never mind, sir; me thoughts is too many for me, as the hin 
 said to the clutch of ducks. It's bettherin , me condition I'm afther, 
 an' your good lady, I'm tould, is the man — (whist, ye villain, and 
 git sinse) — I mean, the woman, to help me." 
 
 Mr. Bland ers was so frequently told to hold his tongue in 
 private, that he had become rather afraid to let it move in public — 
 at least, when his wife was present. 
 
 An exceedingly severe "Well, Mr. Blanders ?" brought him to 
 his senses, or rather informed him that he was permitted and ex- 
 pected to make some remark. 
 
 " Well, my good man, I am sure we are only too willing to 
 help you. There are a few little conditions as regards religion, 
 and that, but we will make it as easy as possible for you; and 
 my wife — " 
 
 " I'll thank you to speak for yourself, Mr. Blanders." 
 " Oh, well, my dear — " 
 
 " Och, sir, the lady and I understands each other — don't we, 
 miss ? — and I'm agreein' to all the conditions beforehand, with- 
 out hearing them, an' I'm sure nothin' in life could be fairer. An' 
 look here, miss," and he drew his chair closer, and dropped his 
 voice to a confidential whisper, " about that O'Halloran bey, 
 sure / knows what I knows, and mum's the word and silent as 
 the grave. Sure I know the benivolence ov ye that made ye take 
 him that night the father died (God be merciful to his soul and 
 heaven be his bed, amin !) and know ye brought him up to this 
 very house, where ye has him now, and clapped your hand to his 
 mouth when he roared out, not knowing the good ye was doing 
 him; an', faith, I believe ye clapped it to his shoulders pretty 
 smart, too. Och, it was mortial kind ye were to the poor mis- 
 understandin' orphan; faith, it's grateful to ye he ought to be. 
 An' sure I saw the pretty crathur peepin' out of the back windy 
 o' this very house an' I comin', an' he tryin' to make signs to 
 some one in the street beyant, as if the ungrateful little villain did 
 not know what was good for him, an' he pointin' to his arm, 
 
38 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 where ye beat him with the stick last night, an' sarved him right, 
 too; an' the police — " 
 
 ' 'Bless my soul !" exclaimed Mr. Blanders. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders looked a whole case of pistols at him, to enjoin 
 silence. 
 
 The fact was that Mick had drawn the whole narrative, piece 
 by piece, from the fertile depths of his own imagination. lie 
 had not seen the child carried away that night; he had not seen 
 Mrs. Blanders administering personal chastisement to the unhappy 
 victim of her zeal ; and certainly he had not seen the child look- 
 ing out of the back window as he came in at the front door, for 
 he was not possessed of Sam Weller's optics. 
 
 But he had told his narrative with such an air of confidential 
 secrecy, with such a calm assumption of knowledge, with such a 
 kind intention of serving people who were about to confer a ben- 
 efit on himself, and whom he felt bound in turn to befriend, that 
 both Mr. and Mrs. Blanders were completely and thoroughly 
 taken in; and, in their alarm lest the knowledge of what they 
 had done could be really and legally proved against them, they 
 quite overlooked Mick's remarkable statement about the peculiar 
 powers of his organs of vision. 
 
 Mr. Blanders was literally trembling. The mention of the po- 
 lice was too much for him. Under ordinary circumstances he had 
 no fear whatsoever of that respectable body. Whatever their 
 private opinions might be — and some of them had very strong 
 private opinions — they were not allowed to express them in pub- 
 lic; and however they might have liked to see soupers consigned 
 to even warmer quarters than a police cell, they were often 
 under the orders of magistrates who certainly leaned pretty 
 strongly to the Protestant side. 
 
 But here was a case which would be sure to create a very strong 
 feeling if it was found out; and though Mr. Blanders knew he 
 would be well backed up with money and patronage, and held 
 scot-free by the unscrupulous parties for whom he worked, still, 
 were the case proved, he could hardly carry on his work longer 
 in Kiilarney, and it might not answer to have popular feeling run 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 39 
 
 too high against him; and there were some " boys " in the neigh- 
 borhood apt to be free with their blackthorns if their ire was 
 roused. The hard times, the utter depression of the people, was 
 all in his favor; still he knew the injured have good memories. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders was equal to the occasion. Of course it was all 
 Mr. Blanders' fault. If the day of doom had arrived she would 
 have accused the unhappy man of having precipitated its arrival. 
 
 "Ye'd better lave the boy out of this the night, " observed 
 Mick, keenly enjoying the sensation he had occasioned. " There's 
 a place, I'm tould, call'd the Hawk's Nest, bekase, I suppose, of 
 the birds that lives in it, an' — " 
 
 "The boy must go to Dublin to-night, Mr. Blanders." 
 
 That gentleman was not prepared to contradict any observa- 
 tion that his wife made, even had he not lost his mind altogether 
 from sheer fright. 
 
 "But, my dear, who is to take him ? If either of us leave this, 
 suspicion will follow on — " 
 
 "Mr. Blanders, I'll thank you to allow me to speak." 
 
 "Ah, thin, but you're the lovin' couple entirely," observed 
 Mick; " when the lady's that devoted she's always privintin' the 
 gintleman ov the throuble ov spakin'." 
 
 Mrs. Blanders was far too practical to notice the interruption. 
 
 "If your toothache was not so bad, Mr. Blanders — " 
 
 "My dear—" 
 
 "I said, Mr. Blanders, if your toothache was not so bad, you 
 ought to go up to Dublin yourself, together wdth this good man 
 and the boy. As it is — well, I'll think about it — you had better 
 come with me;" and Mrs. Blanders, having signed to Mick to 
 remain where he was, and to her husband to follow her, left the 
 room. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Blanders, I'll thank you to attend to what I'm go- 
 ing to say. You must go to Dublin with this man. I believe he is 
 in earnest — at least, that he wants to get money, and will make 
 some sacrifices for it; but it would be impossible to trust him with 
 the boy alone. Can I depend on you that you won't make a fool 
 of yourself and spoil the whole business?" 
 
40 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 "My dear—" 
 
 "You're enough to drive any woman clean crazed — you, the 
 father of a family — God help them ! — with no more sense than a 
 teetotum, or — an elephant" (Mrs. Blanders was apt to confuse her 
 metaphors, and wholly regardless of the fact that she had asked 
 Mr. Blanders a question). " Certainly I cannot leave this place 
 with no one but you in it, and of two evils choose the least, 
 which, I must say, in conscience, when you are in it is always the 
 worst. And now I beg you will attend to me and do exactly 
 what I desire, or you need not corne to me when you get into 
 trouble again," 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER, 4? 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN THE POLICE COURT. 
 
 Oh, thin, Paddy Malone, ye bewildering boy, 
 Ye're yer father's own jewel, yer mother's own joy. 
 
 " Drunk and disorderly — fined five shillings. Now, then, sir ? 
 look sharp and pay up." 
 
 " Is it five shillin's ye mane?" observed Mick, with a face ex- 
 pressive of utter vacuity; " faith, it's myself that never touched a 
 whole shillin' since the time I was born, ban-in' the one I swal- 
 lowed when I was a babby, when the doctor — " 
 
 "We want none of your talk. Pay your money and go; five 
 shillings for you and five for the gentleman that's along with you. 
 You seem to have got over the drink better than he did, for he 
 looks drunk and incapable this minute. ' ' 
 
 " Oh, sure, your honor, sir, you would not be blamin' him; he 
 has not got his mornin' shut up in that dirty cell all night, an' 
 he's never himself until the missus comes to his bedside with a 
 drop to rouse his sowl." 
 
 If ever mortal man was in an agony of desperation and de- 
 spair, that man was John Thomas Blanders. If ever man realized 
 that his wife was his better-half, John Thomas Blanders realized 
 it that day. 
 
 Certainly he would have given ten years of his life to have had 
 her at hand to get him out of the hapless position in which he 
 found himself. 
 
 The result of the private interview between husband and wife 
 had been a visit from Mr. Blanders toa u medical hall," where 
 
42 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 he appeared with his face tied up and considerably swelled, as 
 might be seen by the protuberance of the bandage in which it 
 was swathed. 
 
 Having expressed his sufferings by many groans and contor- 
 tions, he asked for something to ease the pain, and on being 
 provided with a remedy, he said that he hoped there was enough 
 to last him for several days, as he was sure he was in for a bad 
 attack, and Mrs. Blanders did not like sending the servants out 
 of messages. 
 
 Now Mr. Blanders was an inoffensive man in general — partly 
 from natural character, and partly in consequence of the severe 
 and excellent training to which he had been subjected since his 
 marriage. But all this availed him little. He was hated for the 
 dirty work he did. Any other sufferer would have been received 
 with sincere expressions of sympathy and condolence ; but the 
 only remark elicited by his appearance was a sotto voce observa- 
 tion of one shop-boy to another, who wondered if Mrs. Blanders 
 had anything to do with his present distress, and the return ob- 
 servation of the other, that he wondered would it be any harm to 
 put the least taste in life more opium than creosote in the mix- 
 ture, and give him a sleep that would keep him from doing the 
 devil's work for a day or two. 
 
 Whether the opium was put in the "pain killer" or not re- 
 mains to be proved. 
 
 That night Mr. Blanders, Mick and the unhappy Thade 
 O'Halloran set out for Dublin. We cannot boast of any re- 
 markable expedition in our mode of travelling in Ireland at pres- 
 ent, but journeys from the Lakes to Dublin are express speed now 
 to what they were then. 
 
 Having commenced the farce of the toothache, Mr. Blanders 
 was obliged to keep it up. Indeed, Mick, who had "scented" 
 the whole plot, was glad, for his own reasons, that it should be 
 kept up. His attentions to the unhappy victim of his wife's clev- 
 erness would have set a more uneducated man mad; but Mr. 
 Blanders had long gone through a course of constant irritation 
 with the happiest results. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 43 
 
 As to Thade, his incessant cries had ceased the moment he 
 saw Mick M'Grath. Children have very keen instincts. Mr. 
 Inlanders' honeyed words or Mrs. Blanders' more forcible argu- 
 ments had alike failed to comfort or subdue him. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders was not naturally cruel; but when she found 
 that Thade's cries were likely to create an attraction, even out- 
 side the house, which would have been *as undesirable as it was 
 unpleasant, she flogged him into silence, if not into submission. 
 When he was told that Mick was going to take him home to father 
 and to granny, his joy was nearly as destructive of the peace of 
 the Blanders household as his grief had been of its safety. 
 
 But a word from Mick to " whist,' ' or "to be aisy," was 
 enough. 
 
 His first look into Mick's fearless black eyes told him that 
 there was no treachery there, and a "trust me, darlin' !" whis- 
 pered with a look that the intelligent child was by no means 
 slow to take in, satisfied him that all was right, even if it did not 
 seem so. 
 
 Dublin was reached at last, and here it was that Mick had 
 made up his mind to rescue Thade in his own fashion. 
 
 Any one who had known what Mr. Blanders suffered in that 
 police court must have pitied him. He dared not open his lips 
 for fear of discovery. He was partly helped by the toothache 
 invention, with which Mike had condoled on his journey, both 
 exteriorly and interiorly, with the kindest expressions of sympa- 
 thy. It had begun to dawn on him that Mick was playing a 
 game, and he knew pretty well by this time that he was no 
 match for a quick-witted Irishman. 
 
 And he had visions of home. Let us say it with all possible 
 tenderness. What man is there of any right feeling, of any re- 
 finement, of any conscience, who does not turn fondly to his do- 
 mestic hearth when cruel fate has torn him from it ? 
 
 Mr. Blanders was no exception to the general rule; but his 
 thoughts were exceptional, and they were not pleasant. A tri- 
 umphant " I told you so !" was mild to the greeting he expected 
 to get when he reached Killarney, minus Thade and minus 
 
44 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK? 
 
 Mick. And the unhappy man was literally tongue-tied. He 
 dared not open his lips in explanation or extenuation. His trade 
 was forever ruined if it was discovered that he had been had up 
 before a magistrate on a charge of being drunk and disorderly. 
 It is true, indeed, that his employers were not very particular as 
 to the character of the persons who served. It was a necessity of 
 the case. They got the weeds which the Pope threw out of his 
 garden into the unhappy field where such weeds thrcve apace. 
 They were obliged to admit that the weeds were weeds, but 
 what could they do when they could not get anything else? 
 Clearly, they had to make the best of a bad bargain, and if they 
 found that the bargain was a very bad one indeed, that was their 
 affair. No one had asked them to undertake their dirty work, 
 and stupid as they were, and blinded by their master, the devil, 
 they were perfectly aware that there was no use in any outcry. 
 Any private short-comings of their emissaries and agents were 
 quietly condoned. If they became known to one or two, they 
 were treated compassionately. What else could be expected, 
 they said, from poor ignorant Papists, brought up all their lives 
 in darkness and deceit. They xorgot, or they found it conven- 
 ient to forget, that these same Papists were supposed to be con- 
 verted. It certainly would have puzzled some of them to have 
 told what they were converted to. 
 
 But a public appearance in a police court, " drunk and disor- 
 derly" — this, indeed, would have been past forgiveness, or 
 would have necessitated removal of the agent to new quarters. 
 An exposure such as this could scarcely be got over. Mr. Inlan- 
 ders knew it. He might have faced the society, but he could not 
 have faced his wife. 
 
 Silence, an assumption of stupidity, and even of the stupor of 
 drunkenness, was his only resource. It must be admitted that 
 Mick entered heartily into his plans, and that he was quite pre- 
 pared to do all the talking. 
 
 "Is it drunk and disorderly, you say? Faith, that chap 
 there," pointing to the unhappy souper, "was a little overcome, 
 111 not deny it, nor the crathur wouldn't hisself if he was able to 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 45 
 
 spake to your honor. But sure you'll forgive him this onct. 
 Sure it all came of a bad toothache he got payin' rounds at St. 
 Killian's Lake come last mid-summer, and it hung over him ever 
 since. Glory be to God, what some men have to pay for their 
 sins — I mean their virtues." 
 
 Mr. Blanders groaned audibly. To be made appear drunk 
 and incapable was bad enough, but to have himself put down as 
 guilty of a Popish superstition, and not be able to deny the 
 charge, was past bearing. 
 
 "Ah, thin, is it a heart ye have in ye at all, at all, or maybe 
 they left it out for some one else whin ye were born. Don't 
 ye hear the crathur groanin', your honor's worship, sir? 
 Sure it's sorry he is, an' he'll say a whole rosary for you — Holy 
 Mary an' all the rest — if you let him off. Sure you never see'd 
 him afore, an' faith, I'll promise your honor's worship, sir, you'll 
 never see him again." 
 
 Mr. Blanders assented with another groan. 
 
 " Sure it's the bit of a smile I see playin', like a sunbeam, on 
 your honor's illigant mouth, under the purty bit ov hair you've 
 got on." 
 
 There was a roar in court, in which his honor heartily joined. 
 
 " There, then, pay your fine directly, and go, sir. I'll let off 
 your friend on account of the toothache, and he may thank you 
 for it." 
 
 Mr. Blanders thought he might. He owed Mick a good deal 
 more than he ever expected to repay. 
 
 " Is it five shillin', your honor ?" 
 
 " I told you so before. Make haste — I can't be kept here all 
 day." 
 
 " Faith, an' it's meself that always knew me manners to the 
 quality since Phil O'Rafferty put it into me with the thick end of 
 an oak-stick. As for delayin' you, sure — " 
 
 "Policeman, take that man out, and give him seven days if 
 he does not pay that five shillings in ten minutes." 
 
 "Oh, your honor, you're hard entirely on a poor motherless 
 boy. It's the first time he's got into a bit of throuble, and he in 
 
46 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 a sthrange counthry entirely. Mush a, sir, if ye came down to 
 my place and was overtook a bit, sure it's not hard the gentry 
 'ud be on ye." 
 
 A joke was very well in the way to enliven a dry police case, 
 but the presiding magistrate was getting more than he wanted, 
 and he lost his temper. 
 
 " Pay that five shillings and go to with you." 
 
 "Faith, thin, yer know, I hope I know me manners betther 
 than to be inthrudin' meself on the quality. Sure it's takin' up 
 the room on ye I'd be if I went there." 
 
 There was another roar in court, and several custodians of the 
 peace came in from the outside to see " what the row was," while 
 others forgot their dignity so far as to grin broadly. 
 
 " Oh, then, bad luck to ye for a five shillin's. It's a dear five 
 shillin's yez are to me," and Mick commenced to feel in every 
 pocket but the right one for the money. 
 
 At last he stooped down, and having divested himself of his 
 left shoe and stocking with the utmost coolness produced the 
 money, part from the heel and part from the toe, and counted it 
 down slowly, utterly oblivious of the shouts of laughter that as- 
 sailed him. 
 
 " There's yer dirty five shillin's, and the d -mend yez with 
 
 it," he said, as he put down the last crooked sixpence to complete 
 the five shillings, having doled out each piece of money as slowly 
 and as deliberately as he could. 
 
 " An' now, your honor, sir, I'll thank you for a resate." 
 
 " Pooh, nonsense, man, we don't give receipts here." 
 
 " Ah, then, the sorra stir me, or this gentleman, or the little 
 boy 'ill stir out ov this the day." And Mick deposited himself 
 on a seat with an air that indicated it would require at least five 
 policemen to move him. 
 
 Mr. Blanders' feelings need scarcely be described, and Thade, 
 with a finger in his mouth and a wisdom beyond his age, clung 
 to his friend and benefactor. 
 
 The curiosity of the magistrate was excited. 
 
 " Really, you must go out of this, my good man." 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 47 
 
 " Give me the resale, yer honor, an' I'm gone as quick as ye'd 
 swallow whisky. ' ' 
 
 "What do you want the receipt for, you fool? Don't you 
 know you won't be taken up on the same charge again ?" 
 
 "Is it what I want the resate for, yer honor? Well, I'll tell 
 yer honor. Ye'll soon see the raison of it," and Mick settled 
 himself with the air of a man who wants to take his time while 
 telling his story. 
 
 " Ye see, yer honor, I'll die some day, glory be to God and 
 have mercy on me sinful sowl, amin. And when I get up to the 
 gates of heaven, there'll be St. Peter hisself there, waitin' for me, 
 an' he'll say, ■ It's welcome ye are, Mick M'Grath, but I must 
 ask you a few questions before I let you in;' an' indeed, yer 
 honor, they needs to be particular, for they can't turn a poor boy 
 out when once he gets in 
 
 "An' I says, * With the greatest pleasure, your holiness.' 
 
 4 ' An' he says, 4 Mick M'Grath, we're glad to see you here, 
 an' we're goin' to let you in, but you'll tell me first did you pay 
 ail your debts when you were on earth down below there ?" 
 
 "An' I'll say, ' In coorse I did, your holiness, every one of 
 them.' 
 
 " An' he'll say to me, * Well, if you did, Mick M'Grath, where 
 are your resates ?' 
 
 "An' I'll say to him, 'Here's every one of them, your holi- 
 ness, barrin' one.' 
 
 "An' he'll say to me, 'Mick M'Grath, it's sorry I am to be 
 keepin' a fine boy like you out in the cowld, along with them 
 Protestants that didn't know any better, but I can't let you in till 
 you bring that one, an' ye must go an' get it for us.' 
 
 "Sure a mighty ill-convanient thing it would be for me to be 
 goin" 1 down below lookin' for your honor to get me resate." 
 
48 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THREE LETTERS. 
 
 Famine slaughtered where plenty reigned, 
 Starved mothers died ere their babes were born, 
 And — merciful Father of the forlorn ! — 
 Men dared to say 'twas by Thee ordained. 
 
 P. O'C. Mac L. 
 
 tc Madame: I write to inform you that a person was brought to 
 our hospital last night who, as far as we can ascertain, is your 
 husband. He is quite unable to give any account of himself. In 
 fact, he has evidently met with rather rough treatment, as we 
 have reason to think, from a mob. 
 
 " He was brought here, however, by a respectable-looking 
 countryman, who told us that he took pity on him, as he was 
 from the same county as himself. Indeed this good man seemed 
 quite devoted to your husband (if we are right in our supposition 
 that our patient is your husband). The man, whom, no doubt, 
 you will know, as he expressed himself very warmly about you, 
 [Mrs. Blunders expressed herself rather warmly at this point] 
 seemed quite broken-hearted at the condition to which, I regret 
 to say, your husband was reduced. He told him repeatedly to 
 cheer up, that he would be a friend to him, that he would be 
 sure to write and tell the mistress all particulars. This assurance 
 appeared to distress your husband greatly, as, no doubt, he 
 feared the effect it might have on you. We hasten, however, to 
 assure you that there is nothing really dangerous the matter, 
 Mrs. Souper (we conclude this is the correct name, as Mr. Michael 
 M'Grath assured us expressly that it was). Mr. Souper has hope- 
 lessly broken his left arm, fractured the right leg, and there is a 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 49 
 
 rather deep incised wound on the forehead; he is, moreover, 
 bruised in several places rather severely; but with time, and the 
 judicious treatment for which this hospital is famous, he will, 
 no doubt, recover. 
 
 " It is now more than a week since he was left here by his 
 friend, Mr. M'Grath, who promised to write you full particulars. 
 As, however, we have not heard from you since, and as Mr. 
 M'Grath has not called here again, as he promised, we think it 
 better to write fully. 
 
 " Mr. M'Grath informed us that he had come up to Dublin in 
 company with your husband and an orphan boy whom they were 
 trying to rescue from some proselytizers. He said you expressed 
 great concern for the poor boy, and had urged your husband to 
 come up to Dublin with him, though he was far from well. You 
 will be glad to hear, he said, that the boy was quite safe from 
 further persecution. 
 
 "If we understood him correctly, he said that your husband 
 was apt at times to take a little more than he could bear, never 
 being a very strong man, and that this was the reason why you 
 asked him to go up to Dublin with him. It seems that he had 
 taken too much, notwithstanding Mr. M'Grath's watchfulness, on 
 the evening of the day that he was brought to us, and that, though 
 he never uses bad language at other times, he has an unfortu- 
 nate propensity for doing so when he is at all overcome by drink. 
 On this evening, unfortunately, he first cursed King William and 
 then cursed the Pope, and was taken before the magistrate, and 
 fined for being drunk and disorderly. Mr. M'Grath said he paid 
 the fine for him out of his own pocket. Indeed through the 
 whole affair he appears to have acted with the utmost delicacy 
 and consideration. But afcer Mr. Souper was released, he became 
 worse than before, and created another row in a low public 
 house, where he was maltreated by two parties; as a consequence 
 of his cursing both Catholics and Protestants, both parties were 
 offended. 
 
 "We are under the apprehension now that his headway be 
 slightly injured, but pray do not make yourself uneasy on this 
 
50 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 subject. Our reason for thinking so is his very strange manner. 
 He refuses to reply to any questions, he will not give his relig- 
 ious denomination, and he keeps his head constantly covered in 
 a way which suggests a morbid fear of observation. This is es- 
 pecially noticeable when the Protestant chaplain makes his visit. 
 Indeed, he has done his utmost to induce Mr. Souper to converse 
 with him, but he finds it impossible to get even a word from him 
 or to see his face. Under all the circumstances, though, we 
 again repeat, there is no danger. We think it better that you 
 should come up to Dublin, if possible, at once. We have less 
 hesitation in making this request, as Mr. M'Grath informed us that 
 you are in affluent circumstances, and that you devote your time 
 and money to works of charity amongst your fellow Catholics. 
 " I beg to subscribe myself, madame, with profound respect, 
 ' * Your obedient servant, 
 
 "JOHN MULLINS, 
 " House -Steward at the Hospital \ Dublin" 
 
 "P. S. — You will pardon me, I am sure, for writing so familiarly, 
 but Mr. M'Grath said so much of your amicability and disinter- 
 ested benevolence, that I feel already as if I had the honor of 
 
 your acquaintance. 
 
 "P. S. — In compliance with Mr. M'Grath's direction, I address 
 the letter to Mrs. Blanders, for Mrs. Souper, New Street, Killarney. 
 He says that Mrs. Blanders is very intimate with you — in fact, 
 quite a second self — and that by addressing you thus the shock 
 will be broken to you." 
 
 Mrs. Blanders' feelings on receipt of this communication will 
 scarcely bear description. The catastrophe was so appalling and 
 so wholly unexpected, that she was simply stunned into silence. 
 
 But she was a woman of action. As soon as she could think, 
 her first thought was, what was to be done ? She hod not one 
 moment's doubt as to what course Mick had thought fit to pur- 
 sue. Having disposed of Mr. Blanders, he would certainly 
 return to Killarney wilh the child, and what an exposure there 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 5 1 
 
 would be. Clearly the place would be far too hot for her and for 
 her hapless husband. Their missionary work was done there, at 
 all events. What was left but to shake the dust from her feet, 
 and to go where the Gospel message would be received with a 
 little more success and gratitude? 
 
 Mrs. Blanders remained in profound reflection for ten minutes, 
 and then she wrote a letter. 
 
 "To the Secretary of the Society for the Conversion of the Irish 
 
 Nation, 
 
 " Reverend Sir: — The long years of arduous work which we 
 have spent amongst an ungrateful people have at last been crown- 
 ed with a wonderful success, but at the cost of great suffering to 
 my devoted and zealous husband. It is well that we have not 
 sought any temporal gain, or we should have been sadly disap- 
 pointed. We have, indeed, not counted the cost. Our house 
 has been open at all hours of the day and night to those who de- 
 sired to hear the Gospel message; and my husband has been 
 travelling, in season and out of season, through the surrounding 
 districts with the Word of Life. We have distributed gratuitously 
 the 2,000 Bibles you sent us, and we hope when the Irish- 
 speaking population of this district has learned to read and speak 
 English, they will be perused with great attention, and that the 
 precious seed which we have sown will bear fruit at last in this 
 unfruitful soil. 
 
 "A great opportunity of saving a poor, benighted soul has oc- 
 curred here lately. You may be assured, and can assure the so- 
 ciety, that we took care it should not be lost. 
 
 " One of the most respectable farmers in this district was dying 
 of famine fever, and my husband scarcely left him in his last 
 hours, administering with the tenderest care to his spiritual and 
 temporal comforts. The poor man was overjoyed to have his com- 
 pany, but the priest, as usual in such cases, interfered, and drove 
 my husband away. Late at night the dying man was, however, 
 most anxious that his child should be rescued from the hands of 
 the priest.* He entreated my husband to take the boy home, 
 
 *Such lies are frequently told in the reports of the societies. 
 
52 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 and you may be assured we know our duty to the society by 
 which we are employed too well to refuse such a request. The 
 difficulty was, however, how to secure the poor little child. But 
 the long experience of my husband, and his fertility in resources, 
 suggested an expedient. 
 
 "On entering very late at night, we found the father was dead, 
 and the boy, who is about seven years of age, was sleeping by his 
 side. I went with my husband, as on such an occasion I could 
 not listen to the promptings of flesh and blood, or consider the 
 severity of the weather, though just recovering from severe illness 
 caught in the discharge of duty. We took the poor boy so quietly 
 that he did not awaken until the following morning, when he 
 found himself in a comfortable bed in our house, and was soon 
 reconciled to the change. But we were obliged to get him out 
 of Killarney as quick as possible, as my husband could not prove 
 that the father had given the child up to him, having no witness 
 present, and of course the priest would have sworn that the man 
 died a good Catholic. Your society knows how prudent we have 
 been, and how we have always avoided anything that could com- 
 promise us in the eyes of the public, or bring the mission into 
 difficulties, unless when some very serious interest was at stake, 
 when, of course, we would do our duty regardless of consequences 
 from which we know the society has sufficient power to protect us. 
 We got the boy up to Dublin last night, but unfortunately my 
 husband lost him in a crowd, and having attempted to address a 
 few words of Scriptural instruction (very unwisely, I must add, but 
 his zeal has no limit) to some sailors, he was set on by them and 
 severely injured. It will be some weeks before he will be able 
 again to travel, and the expense for medical attendance and lodg- 
 ing in a private house will be very heavy. But we are sure your so- 
 ciety will amply compensate him for what he has suffered in your 
 service. One partial failure this time will insure success on the 
 next occasion, and, as the boy was actually brought to Dublin by 
 my husband, we expect to be paid the usual grant of ^50 for 
 saving a child, besides expenses. The boy's name can be entered 
 on the books of the society, but prudence will require that his 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 53 
 
 own name should not be entered. You might put him down as 
 Michael Murphy, aged thirteen, and, for the same reason, it is well 
 to alter the age. He may be entered, also, as sent to America, to 
 save him from the persecution he would have to undergo if he re- 
 mained in this country. 
 
 4 'Hoping to have a remittance from you at your earliest con- 
 venience, to cover expenses, I remain, 
 
 Reverend Sir, etc., etc., 
 Sophia Blanders. 
 
 " P. S. — I think we had better leave Killarney as soon as pos- 
 sible. We could do more good now in any other place." 
 
 Mrs. Blonders read her composition over several times very 
 carefully, and felt satisfied with the result. She knew that ques- 
 tions would not be asked nor very minute inquiries made as to 
 the truth of her statement. In fact, the whole business required 
 a great deal of " confidence " and a very large amount of make- 
 believe on the part of those principally concerned, and when all 
 were equally interested in multiplying statistics, there' was no 
 question about the process by which they were made up. 
 
 Mrs. Blanders received her money in due course, with warm 
 commendation for her humanity and devotion. She went up to 
 Dublin as soon as possible, and after she had relieved her feelings 
 and done her duty by informing her husband that he was a fool, 
 she subsided. 
 
 Matters had turned out better than she had expected; in fact, 
 almost as well as if poor Thade had been in the Hawk's Nest. 
 
 Her husband knew so well what his wife's opinion of him was, 
 that he could bear to hear it reiterated without much concern. 
 He was, in fact, both thankful and surprised to find that he 
 escaped so easily. 
 
 LETTER NO. 3. 
 
 To Mr. Myles O'Grady, Esq., 
 
 In the street near me Mother's house, 
 Killarney, 
 
 August the one, 18 — 
 Respectful Sir: I write these few lines, hopia' it will find 
 
54 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 you as well as it leaves me at present, barrin' the yellow faver, 
 for which we're in quaranted, which was brought on boord in a 
 hin-coop, which a boy of the Sullivans' came in from New York, 
 looking for the chickens which his mother promised to send him 
 from the ould country; but there was none of them left, for we 
 had an awful storm, glory be to God, at sea, an' went part way 
 down to the bottom in the ocean, but come up again quite right, 
 praise be to his holy name; and the hins were drowned dead, and 
 there was not one left above wather, that the poor boy cried a 
 pailful of tears; but sure where was the use an' the distance so 
 great ? 
 
 " I axed the captain — a civil-spoken little gentleman enough for 
 an Englishman — how many miles it was to land the time we was 
 going down the sea, an' he said two Irish miles was equal to 
 three ov theirs, an' that shortened the road wonderful. Hon- 
 ored sir, I never was let land on the pier, but I am writin' this by 
 a boy that is a wonderful scollard, entirely, entirely. Sure he's 
 got the finest character yez ever seed, an' his testimonials, as he 
 calls the bits iv paper he has by him, is signed by all the clargy 
 in Ireland, and more than all the gentry. Dear, dear, what it is 
 to have the book-larnin' ! I wish me mother had sent me to 
 school with a stick, an' I'd be doin' this meself, so ye'd know it 
 was me own writin'. 'Deed and sure, respectful sir, I'm told by 
 some ov the boys here that this chap's testimonials is superior to 
 his character, an' no wonder, with all the priests to the fore. 
 Well, well, I hope it's takin' the shine out ov them Yankees 
 he'll be yet, for the honor and glory of ould Ireland. 
 
 "It's a quare place entirely, this. Would yez believe it, now, 
 respectful sir, but the hoight ov the quality live in brown stone 
 houses, an' they say they're illigant entirely; but, faith, a brown 
 mud cabin would do the likes of me, if I had the bit of ground 
 round it, an' no landlord to pay rent to but meself. 
 
 "Honorable sir, will you tell the ould mother that it's not 
 forgettin' her I'll be; but we can't go yet on land, for there's 
 nothin' to walk on but the wather, or they wouldn't keep me 
 long here. They say it's twenty-one days we'll be in it, which 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 55 
 
 is equal to three weeks at home. Bad luck to them, with their 
 quare ways of countin', that puts a poor boy out entirely. Ye 
 may tell the poor woman that I'll send her a present soon. As I 
 know she likes what's nate and plain, an' not showy, I've bought 
 a nice bright orange-colored kerchief, that she'll look like a rale 
 lady in goin' to Mass, as it will have been twice over the says, as 
 the captain's boy brought it from one of the men in the East In- 
 dies, where they don't want any clothes, and so can part with 
 them chape. Lord save us all, what a quare place the world is 
 entirely, that the people can't even wear their clothin' itself. 
 They tells me here they have got a wonderful new invention 
 that'll do away with the letters entirely; and sure it would be a 
 blessin' to the young chaps that won't want to learn them, for all 
 the writin' 'ill be done by touchin' bits ov wires, and they say it 
 is done by the quare thing up in the sky which, glory be to God, 
 I never saw but once, and then it was me brother saw it, for I 
 was too long wakening up when he called me. 
 
 "They tell me, too, there's a place up North where the sun 
 never sets part of the time and never rises the other part, and sure 
 I told them it's a pity they can't persuade the gentleman to do it 
 more regular. But don't think, respectful sir, that I got a fool 
 since I left Killarney, and believe them; faith, no sir — your honor, 
 I mane — I took good care to let them know they need not put a 
 comet her on me with their lies, an' I afther doin' that souper 
 woman. Oh, thin, your honor, only it's afraid I am I'd be kilt 
 dead entirely and put into prison afther to reflect on it by the 
 peelers, but I'd have liked to have stay'd at home to see the fun 
 out. An' that puts me in mind that I've come to the beginning 
 of me letther, which I forgot before. The boy that's writin' this 
 says this should have come first; but sure if he takes a clane piece 
 of paper and puts this end at the beginning, it'll be all the same, 
 as the chaps is comin' in and out with nothin' to do, an' all 
 helpm' each other while we're doin' this writin', an' makin' re- 
 marks on every word I say, which is makin' his hand shake so 
 that I'm sure his own mother would not know the writin', poor 
 woman, though I don't suppose she couid read it much easier if 
 she did. 
 
56 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 "Well, of all the desateful sarpints, since Eve and the Garden 
 of Eden, that woman's the worst. The lies she told about that 
 boy would fill one of her own soup-kettles over and over, and it 
 would not be short measure 'ud be in it, either. Sure I thought 
 of her when we were going to be drowned comin' over in the sea, 
 and the man kept turning the wheel to keep the vessel up ; but 
 we prayed to the Holy Virgin and the blessed Mother of God, 
 that never refused the prayer of a poor Irish boy, that died dead 
 for the true religion over and over thousands of years ago, before 
 her and her soup kettles were even heard of. But the boy that's 
 noldin' the pen says his hand is aching with listening to me and 
 putting down all this, bad manners to him. I believe if it was a 
 faction fight he was in, his hand would not ache on him so aisy. 
 
 " Anyway, I must hurry up now, for I hear we are just going 
 to land, and I want to get round to the stores, for that's the 
 quare name they have for the shops here, an' I suppose it's be- 
 cause they have such a lot of things stored up in them, an' not 
 like Kitty Brady's little general shop in Killarney, where they 
 never had anything particular except a few dip candles and a pipe 
 or two. I'm told there's plenty of employment to be had for any- 
 body, an' I'm goin' round to all the places to ask if they have 
 got room for a vacancy, and that I'm agreeable to take it. 
 
 " Hopin\ respectful sir, we'll meet in that land of eternal glory, 
 where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Mick M'Grath. 
 
 "An' for the boy that wrote for me, if it 'ud be plasin' to your 
 honor, sir, to tell his mother that he's from Killarney, and that 
 he'll write to her when he gets on land. 
 
 " P.S. — I hear now it's not the yellow faver that we had at all, 
 at all, that it's further up the country, and is, as you may say, a 
 pleasure comin'. It's a bill of health we've been in. I'm sure 
 with their bills an' their stores, it's hard to know the manin' of 
 a word they say. Sure I thought it was when a man was sick the 
 doctor sent in a bill. Faith, an' it's fine times they must have 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 57 
 
 here if they can send in a bill for health as well as for sickness; 
 but poor Ireland was always an oppressed country. The heat is 
 awful, an' I'm sartain sure if I live here much longer that I'll die 
 an' the half of me 'ill be melted away, and then one-half of me 
 'ill be looking for the other half at the day of judgment in the 
 streets of New York, Amin, Glory be to God; but I suppose the 
 holy angels 'ill know which of us is which, an' won't be mixm* 
 up one with the other, and not of the true religion. 
 
 "P.P.S. — Here I am at the end and haven't said the beginning 
 yet. Sure I suppose Thade tould you all he could, the era. 
 thur, the night I put him in at the hall door, and went right oft 
 to America that minute. Take care of that boy, your worship. 
 He'll be a credit to ould Ireland yet. I know you'll take him 
 an' give nim a bit o' larnin', and don't let him forget poor Mick, 
 an' tell Ellen I'll sind for her." 
 
5& FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORB.V 
 
 PART II 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHERE AM I GOING ? 
 
 But this my black despair, when thou wert dying 
 No breath of prayer did waft thy soul to heaven. 
 
 B.J. Ho 
 
 "Oh, my God, my God, where am I going?" 
 
 " Hush, my dear, you'll only make yourself worse." 
 
 But still she cried and moaned, as only the dying can cry and 
 moan, " Oh, my God, my God, where am I going?" 
 
 A pitiful sight it was, indeed, and one to make the angels 
 weep. 
 
 Even her husband's love could not soothe her now. She knew 
 it could not pass with her over the terrible barrier between life 
 and death. 
 
 But one short year ago she had come, a gay and thoughtless 
 
 bride, to her husband's splendid mansion in Avenue, New 
 
 York. 
 
 Death ! What had she to do with death, when wedding con- 
 gratulations were still ringing in her ears, and wedding presents 
 were all untouched by time ? 
 
 Death ! What had she to do with death, when her young life 
 was just beginning, when the young blood was bounding joyously 
 through her veins, and the tenderest love of a noble man was 
 all her own ? 
 
 Death ! If the idea had crossed her mind at all, it was only to 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 59 
 
 think that it might come to others, not, certainly, to her. For 
 the young have a strange way of thinking death impossible for 
 themselves, but possible for all others. 
 
 Death ! She was face to face with it now, and she knew it. 
 
 A man face to face with a savage animal — with a roaring lion 
 — with a raging tiger, would have had less fear. The possibility, 
 however vague, of escape — the chance, however slight, of defeat- 
 ing his enemy — the peril, so great as to rouse every nerve, to de- 
 mand every thought for the one purpose of self-help — this would 
 have lessened, if it would not altogether have deadened fear. 
 
 But she was face to face with death, and she knew it. 
 
 Scant time to prepare for that which would need a life-time of 
 preparation, and pitiful ignorance of how to prepare. 
 
 There was no reprieve. In a few hours all would be over. 
 Every alleviation that wealth and love could give was hers; but 
 these very alleviations seemed a cruel mockery now. What 
 could wealth do for her ? Nothing. If all the gold and all the 
 jewels and all the wealth of the whole world could have been 
 brought to her and laid at her feet, it would have been just as 
 much use or comfort to her now as a stone lying on the road- 
 side. 
 
 She looked round the room, with its sumptuous arrangements, 
 its costly mirrors, its silken hangings, its golden ornaments, and 
 she smiled to herself a smile of utter misery. What use was all 
 this to her now ? As much use to her, and no more, as one of 
 the brown stones of which her house was built. And yet she 
 knew there were people who envied her this brown stone house 
 with all its costly appurtenances. 
 
 Love ! What good could that do her now, except to add a 
 deeper pang to the last agony ? 
 
 Ah ! if love could have saved her, she would have been saved. 
 
 Her husband sat moaning out his anguish at the foot of her 
 bed. Her baby had been taken away — she did not even notice it. 
 
 There was something now which claimed her for its own — 
 something which demanded all her strength. For one who had 
 been, as men call it, nursed in the lap of affluence — for one who 
 
(50 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK' 
 
 had been an idol at home, and a yet greater idol, if possible, in 
 her new home — there was scarce a trace of selfishness in her 
 character. Loving and lovable, gentle and tender, true and 
 faithful, caring less than most young girls for the attractions of 
 society or for her own attractions — she only wanted one thing; 
 and in that supreme hour all that she possessed could not com- 
 pensate for that want or purchase it for her. 
 
 She could not be satisfied with platitudes. A man in moment- 
 ary danger of death will not thank you for assurances that he 
 may not be in such peril, after all. 
 
 Her husband had tried to comfort her, at first, in this way ; but 
 he saw it was useless. What was he to say ? What was he to 
 do ? He ! why he had not been in any place of worship six 
 times in his life, and then he went, not to worship God, nor to 
 pray for pardon for his sins — no, it was to hear some popular 
 preacher, a man who, living himself a life that even his friends 
 could scarcely call moral, yet dared to take the name of the Liv- 
 ing God in vain by preaching a Christianity of his own invention. 
 
 He was not the man to help the soul in that terrible hour. The 
 husband would not allow him inside his house, though he would 
 pass an hour listening to his preaching as he would pass an hour 
 at the opera or the theatre. 
 
 There are stem realities in life which need something more than 
 words. 
 
 She only noticed the baby once. It was June, and the summer 
 roses were giving out all their fragrance — such fragance, at least, 
 as they can give in a crowded city like New York. A few fresh 
 buds, bathed with dew, were lying on her bed. She took one in 
 her hand, and with a look of unutterable love and anguish, she 
 Said: 
 
 " Call her Rosaline." 
 
 There was no need of words. He understood. 
 
 A fanciful name — a poetical name; not one to remind her of a 
 saint or of holy things. Not one to help her to prepare in any 
 way for the death which must come to her also. 
 
 Again the poor dying girl moaned, "Oh, my God, my God I 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 6 1 
 
 where am I going ?" She knew the name of God, and that was 
 nearly all she knew of religion. Time and eternity seemed to 
 have changed places in the minds of those who had educated 
 her. Everything in this world was treated as if it was to be eter- 
 nal, as if there could not be any change, as if it were all to go on 
 forever. 
 
 Eternity, if thought of at all, was treated as some vague, indefi- 
 nite, wholly unimportant matter. It did not seem worth a 
 thought. Certainly no serious thoughts were given to it. 
 
 But now this girl-bride was face to face with eternity, and it 
 seemed to her as if she should never have thoaght of anything 
 else. 
 
 How she would have envied Tim O'Halloran's death -bed ! 
 How willingly now would she have changed places with the poor, 
 famine -starved Irish peasant, whom once she had been taught to 
 despise ! What would she not have given for one little minute of 
 their glorious faith, their sublime hope, their perfect charity ! 
 
 But as we live, so we shall die, one and all. We have had 
 time enough given us to arrange for the future; if we have not 
 availed ourselves of the time, the fault is our own. 
 
 Mr. Maxwell did not know what to do. How could he offer 
 the consolations his poor wife needed so much, when he was so 
 utterly ignorant of their source ? He had literally been without 
 God in the world. How was He to be founa now, who had never 
 been sought until now ? It is true, indeed, that mercy is prom- 
 ised even at the last moment, that there is hope for all ; but it is 
 too often forgotten that we have it in our power to put ourselves 
 in such a condition as to be beyond the reach of mercy willfully 
 and premeditatedly. 
 
 Even the heathens believe that there is a God, and worship 
 Him — ignorantly, it is true — yet they do worship. But what shall 
 we say of those who bear the name of Christians, and yet who 
 never bend their knees to their Maker, never offer Him the 
 homage of their prayers or of their praises, who never utter His 
 holy name except to blaspheme it ? 
 
 And yet Mr and Mrs. Maxwell were not of this class. They 
 
62 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 were what the world calls good, well-meaning people. They 
 did no evil, indeed, to any one — they were merciful as those who 
 know not God may be merciful — to every one except themselves. 
 
 But what a terrible exception. Let us suppose that we have 
 been the means of saving the whole world by our prayers, and 
 tears, and penances, yet that our own souls were lost ! That, 
 at the great Day of Doom, we should see thousands entering 
 heaven, and should be the means of their having done so, and 
 yet should find ourselves condemned to hell. What consolation 
 would it give us, that they had been saved while we had been 
 lost — that they should listen to the songs cf the angels, while we 
 groaned in anguish at the curses of the demons ? 
 
 Mr. Maxwell did not feel as his wife felt. He felt for her, 
 certainly, as men do feel when the light of their life is about to 
 be extinguished — as men feel when they think the world can 
 never again afford them a moment's happiness. 
 
 But we cannot compare the feelings of a man on the point of 
 perishing from a violent death with the feelings of one who merely 
 looks on at danger. 
 
 Mr. Maxwell was not face to face with death. He had not to 
 ask himself, " Where am I going ?" He was not in the position 
 of one whose life is counted by hours, if not by minutes. 
 
 But his wife, his bride, his love, to her had come the agony of 
 death — in no dulling stupor of insensibility, which sends so many 
 souls unconscious to their doom — souls who might have prepared 
 for it before this came, but did not. 
 
 To her had come the agony of death — not as it comes to many, 
 in such anguish that pain almost deadens every sense, so that the 
 soul is unable to realize the terror that is coming — no; her life 
 was ebbing away, yet her soul was quite able to ncte each 
 change, each advance of the fell destroyer, Death. 
 
 The saints who have lain dying — who have cried out in trans- 
 ports of adoring joy, " When shall I be in heaven ?" — they have 
 lived for heaven, and now they reap their reward in a foretaste of 
 its joy. 
 
 The wicked have lived for hell. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 63 
 
 It is as awful as it is true. 
 
 The wicked have lived for hell, and now they have a foretaste 
 of what is prepared for them — of what they have chosen. 
 
 And the poor, dying girl had lived for hell. Slit knew it now, 
 alas ! too late. 
 
 She had her choice, as every mortal has, and she had chosen. 
 Her choice was none the less deliberate because it was not made 
 with any loud expressions of blasphemy or defying of God. She 
 had simply and quietly passed God by. She could not profess 
 ignorance of Him. She said in a general way that God had been 
 very good to her; but even this goodness had not touched her 
 heart — had not made her think of Him. She was simply indif- 
 ferent — but her indifference was sin, and she knew it now. 
 
 She did not think — that would have been excuse enough once; 
 but she was face to face with realities now, and she knew she 
 dared not make such excuses. She knew now that it was her 
 duty to have thought. She knew now that God had given her a 
 mind and an intellect that she might use it for Him, and she had 
 used it for the devil. 
 
 What had her thoughts been occupied with ? The world, its 
 cares and pleasures, herself — with precisely those very things 
 which God had expressly forbidden. Certainly she had not 
 broken those laws of God which were the laws of her country. 
 This was all the world asked from her. She must not offend 
 against the code of morals which the world has condescended to 
 sanction. There must be an outside observance of some kind of 
 morality and order. It is the devil's reluctant tribute to Al- 
 mighty God. The world, for its own sake, is obliged to enforce 
 some rule — a proof, were proof needed, how necessary rule is. 
 
64 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BLOOD-GUILTINESS. 
 
 The guilt of another ! God help that soul 
 That bears such a burden of sin and fears, 
 
 One only art can wipe out the crime — 
 A life-long penance of pain and tears. 
 
 M.F. C = 
 
 " Where is Kathleen?" 
 
 Mr. Maxwell thought, and with apparent reason, that his wife', 
 mind was wandering. 
 
 "Kathleen?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 But there seemed no sign of wandering, though the voice had 
 grown perceptibly weaker. 
 
 If she had asked for her baby, or for some near and dear 
 friend, he would not hive been surprised; but Kathleen was an 
 Irish servant — the only Irish servant, indeed, in that large estab- 
 lishment. Her place was an humble one; but she was a smart 
 girl, and would soon rise to a far better position. 
 
 *' My darling, what can you want with Kathleen?" 
 
 " She knows something about religion, I am sure; they say all 
 these Irish servants do. Their priests do something for them 
 when they are dying. Oh, Willie, Willie!" she cried, and 
 wrung her poor hands in anguish, "it is hard to die, it is hard 
 to die!" 
 
 " My darling, what should you be afraid of? You never did 
 any harm." 
 
 " I am afraid of God. ' ' 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 65 
 
 " But they say He is merciful. Surely, surely He cannot be 
 hard on you." 
 
 " He is merciful; but if the Bible is true, lie is merciful only 
 to those who have served Him faithfully. What have I ever done 
 for Him ?" 
 
 True; what had she done for God ? Nothing. And she knew 
 it now, when she was face to face with death. 
 
 Nothing ! 
 
 We do something for those whom we love. We are never 
 weary of doing for them. Our hearts are full of desire to please 
 them, to surprise them with some act of gratitude, of affection. 
 
 "If you love Me, keep My commands." Which of God's 
 commands had she kept ? Not one of them. Had she ever done 
 one single act of her life for the love of God ? No. She had 
 simply never thought of Him. Had she feared him ? No. She 
 was simply indifferent. 
 
 Once, indeed, a little thought of fear, of holy fear, had come* 
 
 She had gone to that most marvellous of all Nature's marvels, 
 the Falls of Niagara. As she gazed awe -stricken upon the rush- 
 ing mass of waters, a thought of God had come into her heart. 
 The flashing lights, the rainbow clouds, the thunder of the 
 waters, brought to her recollection some words she had seen long 
 before, it seemed — some words of the great glory of the Eternal 
 One, who sits above the mighty waters, who pours them forth 
 from the hollows of His hands — of thunders and lightnings sur- 
 rounding the throne of the great Creator — of the whisperings of 
 music upon the harps of a virgin throng who follow the Lamb 
 everywhere. 
 
 The voice of God spoke to her through the voice of Nature, 
 and in the mighty falling of the cataract waters she heard the 
 whisper: 
 
 God! 
 
 She knew God had spoken. For a moment her heart was 
 touched. 
 
 It was but for a moment. God had given His grace freely. 
 She had done nothing — nothing whatever to merit it. He had 
 
66 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 given His grace kindly, oh, how kindly ! She had never given 
 him one loving thought. 
 
 God, if we may say so, had set a device for her, a plan to win 
 her; but she was not to be won. 
 
 The supreme moment passed — passed forever ! 
 
 Mr. Maxwell sent for the servant. He would have gone him- 
 self for a priest that moment if his wife had asked him. He 
 loved her far too dearly, far too unselfishly, to hesitate for a mo- 
 ment in complying with any desire which she might express. 
 
 But before he allowed the girl to enter the room, he spoke to 
 her outside the door. 
 
 " Your mistress is dying," he said; " she is greatly distressed 
 m her mind. If you can do anything to help her or comfort— " 
 
 " Oh, sir, what can I do ?" 
 
 61 1 thought — she thinks — you are a Catholic." 
 
 It seemed as if, in saying that, he had said all that need be 
 said. He did not know why Kathleen trembled. He did not 
 know why she had become so suddenly and so ghastly pale. 
 He attributed her hesitation to timidity, and said: 
 
 " This is no time to think of yourself, girl. If you can help 
 my dying wife, for God's sake do;" and he forced her into the 
 room. 
 
 "Kathleen, oh, Kathleen, help me!" 
 
 Already the eyes, once so extolled for their beauty, were glaz- 
 ing in death. It seemed, indeed, as if terror of the future kept 
 her still lingering here. The little vitality left was sustained by 
 this strange stimulant. She could not die, it seemed, in this ter- 
 ror — in this darkness — in this awful dread. 
 
 Kathleen flung herself on her knees by her dying mistress. She 
 scarcely knew her. There were so many helps in that great 
 mansion, that one more or less mattered little. It was not a house 
 where souls were counted, as souls should be in all Christian 
 households. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, what can I do?" 
 
 Again she wailed out: "I thought you were a Catholic. I 
 Ckought Catholics could do something for the dying. ' ' 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 67 
 
 As the moments passed and no answer came, the shadow of an 
 unutterable despair settled down upon her. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, I was a Catholic — I am — but it is years since I 
 practiced my religion." 
 
 Years since she practiced her religion, and time is counted only 
 by years, which are but as minutes in the great spaces of eter- 
 nity ! 
 
 "Let me go for the priest," she cried. 
 
 " Oh, no — it is too late now — too late ! too late !" 
 
 It was too late. 
 
 Before priest could arrive, the hour for her departure would be 
 sounded upon the dial of time. Each moment, as it passed 
 them, was worth a prince's ransom. A prince's ransom ! It is 
 a poor comparison to make. All the wealth of India, all the 
 wealth of all the world put together, could not delay the supreme 
 moment. 
 
 Faster and faster the minutes seemed to fly, and Kathleen suf- 
 fered a death-agony with her dying mistress. She realized now 
 to the full what she had done. She, with full light, with full 
 knowledge of her religion, without an excuse before God and 
 man, had flung away her glorious birthright as a Catholic, as a 
 member of that faith which even infidels have admitted to be the 
 grandest religion the world has ever known. 
 
 Unhappy, miserable girl I Already her sins had found her out. 
 Happily for her, she had time for repentance; but to her dying 
 hour she would go bearing about the bitter burden of blood- 
 guiltiness. 
 
 She was guilty of spiritual murder, and she knew it. 
 
 If she had been faithful to the teaching of the holy faith in 
 which she had been born, baptized and educated, what might 
 she not have done for the soul of that dying woman ? How she 
 might have comforted her, and taught her, and helped to win her 
 over to receive the ministration of God's holy Church ! 
 
 The girl knew her religion very well. She knew if there was 
 immediate danger of death, and that there was not time to get a 
 priest, that she should have herself administered conditional bap- 
 
68 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW TORK| 
 
 tism, and taught her dying mistress how to make an act of contri- 
 tion for all her sins. 
 
 And then this poor soul might have gone hopefully to God. 
 
 Protestant baptism is so carelessly administered, principally be- 
 cause it is considered a mere ceremony of no moment, that, awful 
 as it is to say so, it is to be feared that the greater number of 
 Protestants are unbaptized, and we know that those who die. 
 without holy baptism will never see God's blessed face in heaven. 
 
 This poor dying woman, then, is deprived — not by ignorant 
 Protestants, who deserve more pity than blame, but by a Catho- 
 lic — of the greatest grace which mortal can desire. 
 
 Kathleen knew full well what she ought to do ; but the paraly- 
 sis of mortal sin was on her, and she hesitated till the time for 
 action was past. 
 
 Then, indeed, when death had claimed its prey, she cried out,, 
 with an exceedimg loud and bitter cry, "Oh, my mistress, my 
 mistress !" 
 
 But what tears or cries could help now ? The time of probation, 
 had passed — the hour of judgment had come. Time enough had 
 been given both to mistress and maid.. Time enough to prepare 
 for eternity . Time enough, intellect enough, opportunity enough. 
 What excuse could either mistress or maid offer, when called tc* 
 account before the judgment-seat of God ? 
 
 Kathleen had come to New York some few years before, as 
 many another Irish girl had come, with little thought of anything 
 except to advance herself in the world. 
 
 The sudden change from the regular habits of home life had 
 not improved her. She was her own mistress now, and gloried 
 in a freedom which was to work her ruin. 
 
 She went to Mass regularly at first, and every Saturday for a few 
 weeks she intended to go to confession. We all know the old 
 proverb about the way to hell. It is, indeed, paved with good 
 intentions. 
 
 No girl says to herself deliberately, " I will go to hell." But, 
 alas ! how many boys and girls choose deliberately to walk in the 
 path that leads to it, straight and direct. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 69 
 
 Here is the fatal error. Here is the terrible danger. And yet 
 how awful is the blindness of those who precipitate themselves 
 into these snares. 
 
 A man who is walking along a road which ends in a dangerous 
 pit-fall is told often and often where he is going. He will not 
 say deliberately that he is going to walk into destruction. Far 
 from it. He will assure you that he is very well able to take 
 care of himself; but those who went the road before know well 
 the folly of his rash confidence. If he continue on that road, he 
 must Grid, by precipitating himself into the yawning chasm from 
 which he can never be rescued. 
 
 And what is the danger of temporal death, compared with the 
 danger of eternal damnation! 
 
 Kathleen had been the envy of many Irish girls in New York, 
 in consequence of her success in obtaining such a good situation 
 and such high wages. She really had done well for herself in a 
 worldly point of view, and this was to her credit, if she had not 
 neglected what was far more important. 
 
 But worldly prosperity is always dangerous. It needs a 
 double watchfulness on the part of those who attain it. They 
 have, indeed, need to look well to the salvation of their souls, 
 lest, having gained all in this world, they should lose all in the 
 next. 
 
 At first Kathleen had the best possible desires and intentions. 
 She would have been indignant and furious with any one who 
 had even suggested that she would become a partial apostate 
 from her faith. What ! could any one suppose that she would 
 turn from the religion of old Ireland — from the faith for which 
 thousands of her forefathers had bled and died ! 
 
 And let it be remembered how a traitor is execrated in Ireland 
 — that a man who outrages his country, or who turns traitor on 
 his countrymen, is ever shunned and hated and despised, and 
 justly so. But what should we say of those who become traitors 
 to their God and their faith, not from any dire temptation or dis- 
 tress, but only because they fear a few words of ridicule from 
 some fellow creature, or in the foolish hope of temporal advance- 
 ment ? 
 
JTO FROM &ILLARNEY TO NEW YORK* 
 
 Kathleen had lost grace by neglecting to attend to her religions 
 duties after her arrival in New York, and she was therefore an 
 easy prey to the tempter. Her fellow-servants, who knew noth- 
 ing about religion, ridiculed, as the ignorant will always do; and 
 she who was once wise became a fool — not for God's sake, but to 
 please the devil. 
 
 What was she to get in exchange ? She was giving away 
 eternal gain to win temporal loss; for in truth, no one ever 
 respects a man or woman who is not true to their religion. 
 
 She was risking her eternal salvation for what ? Because a 
 few words of ridicule had met her ears now and then. 
 
 Poor fool ! poor fool ! What king would fling away his crown 
 and descend from his royal throne, because an envious few make 
 a mock of his royalty ? 
 
 And yet do we not too often find that those who should be 
 faithful to their God, that those who may wear a royal crown* 
 and who have a royal throne prepared for them in heaven, will 
 fling it all aside because they fear some little word which will be 
 forgotten almost as soon as it is uttered — because they are fools, 
 enough to listen to the sneers or persuasions of some bad com- 
 panions, who will laugh at them in the end for their folly in being 
 so easily led ! 
 
 Ridicule may, for a time, be the portion of those who are stead- 
 fast to their religious, principles; but m the end faithfulness is al- 
 ways respected, and will surely have honor in this world as well 
 as in the. next. 
 
 Blood-guiltiness I 
 
 Kathleen shuddered as she thought of it. She had been guilty 
 of spiritual murder, so far as it was in her power. 
 
 If a mother, looking at her little babe in its cradle„ could see 
 the hangman's halter round its neck — could know that this child 
 would one day imbrue its hand in the blood of a fellow -creature, 
 what would be her anguish, what would be her horror ! Day and 
 night she would be haunted by the terrible thought — day and 
 night Uie horrible future would be before her. 
 
 Do not let us. forget that it is far more awful to kill the soul 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 
 
 71 
 
 than to kill the body. Let us sometimes think how fearful will 
 be the agony, the anguish of those who are guilty of spiritual 
 murder. 
 
 Let Irish Catholics, especially, think of the work God has 
 given them — the glorious mission of converting the world. From 
 north to south, from east to west, the Irish Catholic has gone forth 
 on his glorious mission. It is the Irish Catholic who builds the 
 churches, who supports the schools ; yes, who give priests for the 
 mission in every English-speaking country in the world. 
 
 Woe to those who fail in the great work or hinder it ! Woe to 
 the Irish man or woman who neglects his religious duties, who is 
 ashamed of his religion, who has upon him the sin of blood-guilti- 
 ness, since he does his best, according to the world's example, to 
 help those around him to lose their souls, while, if he remained 
 faithful to God, he might save not only his own soul, but the 
 souls of those with whom he associates. 
 
 ^aT£ ue^ 
 
 OF <T p 
 
 RARE OLD IRISH BOOKS 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 JOHN GRAHAM, Proprietor 
 HE HUSH VIJJDICATOB 
 
 */p and 
 
J72 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW* YORK; 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TRADE. 
 
 "A sunny, laughing Irish boy, 
 His father's pride, his mother's joy.'" 
 
 11 Thade is growing up a fine lad, father." 
 
 It was Kate O' Grady who spoke, and what she said could not 
 be contradicted. 
 
 Since the night on which Mick had put the poor child inside 
 Mr. O'Grady's door, with a piece of paper pinned to his frock, 
 and inscribed in Mick's "printed characters," the nearest ap- 
 proach he could make to penmanship, Thade had been a gen- 
 eral favorite. 
 
 The inscription ran thus: 
 
 Cl Here's Thade, your honor, sir; an' if that desavin' black- 
 guard comes afther him, tell her to go to her master, the .'" 
 
 Mrs. Blanders, as we have seen already, had her own plans, 
 and was not disposed in the very least to interfere with Thade 
 and his friends. She had quite sufficient sense to know when a 
 case was hopeless, and sufficient mother-wit to keep herself out of 
 trouble that would not pay. 
 
 So Mrs. Blanders and her husband had absconded. In fact, 
 for many reasons, they had discovered that a foreign mission 
 would be more agreeable to their taste; and even wi:h ail the 
 liberality of the " Society for the Conversion of the Irish from the 
 Errors of Popery to those of the Protestant Religion," it would be 
 far more remunerative. 
 
 To Mr. Blanders' great amazement and his still greater joy, 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 73 
 
 Mrs. Blanders had simply relieved her feelings on their first meet- 
 ing by the emphatic utterance of the words: 
 
 "You're a fool !" 
 
 Mr. Blanders had been told this so often, that he had at last 
 come to accept the assertion as incontrovertible, or as an estab- 
 lished fact which it was useless to dispute. 
 
 She then informed him that she had arranged with the Society 
 for the Conversion of the Cannibals. 
 
 Mr. Blanders demurred. He had a habit of taking things au 
 pied de la lettre, and really believed that for once his wife had lost 
 her wits. 
 
 On venturing a slight remonstrance, accompanied by a timid 
 suggestion that he would, on the whole, prefer dying a natural 
 death, he was silenced very peremptorily. 
 
 " Did I say you were going to live with the cannibals or near 
 them ? Thank God, if you were bom a fool, I was not. Of 
 course we must send home lists of converts; but I think we've 
 done that before now," she added, not without a touch of scorn; 
 but whether for the credulity of her employers, or for her own 
 humiliation in being obliged to earn her living by such menda- 
 cious proceedings, we are unable to tell. " But," she continued, 
 ''• remember that there can be no inquiries made as to what takes 
 place thousands of miles from here, and that converts can be got 
 there a good deal cheaper and with far less trouble than in Ire- 
 land; while there is a fine opening for commerce; and, I am told, 
 on good authority, a fortune can be realized in a very short time 
 and with very little trouble. That done, I suppose we can come 
 home and attend to our own business." 
 
 Thade had been sent regularly to school, and had got a fair 
 education. In those days common sense ruled in this matter, 
 and an unfortunate school-boy of twelve or fourteen was not 
 obliged to learn as many A \ ologies " as a professor. Good reading, 
 good penmanship and good arithmetic were considered the essen- 
 tials, and were taught and respected accordingly. 
 
 Nor was Thade ungrateful. He poured forth all the warm- 
 hearted devotion of his race on "the master " and the young 
 
74 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 ladies of the family; but Mr. Tom, fhe eldest son of Mr. 
 O' Grady, was the special object of his attention and devotion. 
 For him he would have laid down his life freely at a moment's 
 .notice, and Mr. Tern's career and success in life was of far more 
 .moment and consideration in his eyes than his own. 
 
 It was with no little pride that he entered the breakfast-room 
 ■ on a bright day in the early part of July, 1 8 — , and handed Mr. 
 Tom a letter, with the observation : 
 
 "Official, sir.' 1 
 
 It was official, and contained an appointment which Mr. Tom 
 had most ardently coveted. Warm congratulations were poured 
 <or»t on him by father and sisters, for he was idolized by his family, 
 .as only sons are apt to be, especially when they have been 
 the last pledge of a mother's affection. Mrs. O'Grady had long 
 .lain with her fathers in the beautiful old abbey church-yard, once 
 the home of the Franciscan fathers, at Muckross, near the Lakes 
 of Killarney. 
 
 Thade lingered, as a privileged domestic, to enjoy the scene, 
 :and to offer his own share m the congratulations. 
 
 "Yes, it's all right, my boy," said Mr. O'Grady; " only that 
 Father Mathew put the spell on me against a drop of whisky, 
 I would tell you to drink the young master's health." 
 
 Thade, happily for himself, had never tasted anything 
 stronger than water, and had not the slightest desire to do so. 
 Would to God that the Irish peasant would save his children 
 from all fear of future misery, by taking the simple precaution of 
 not allowing them the opportunity of acquiring a taste ior the 
 poison, which does the work of the devil better than he could do 
 :it himself. 
 
 "You'll not want the horse now, sir ?" 
 
 " True for you, Thade, and you will have your heart's desire." 
 
 It must be admitted that to be the possessor of a horse was the 
 highest flight of Thade's ambition. He had done well at school, 
 and Mr. O'Grady was now thinking of binding him to a trade, 
 or even of placing him in an office. 
 
 Let us have a glance at him as he stands in the bright morning 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 75 
 
 sunlight, in. the pleasant homely parlor. Tall for his age, lithe, 
 well-faonioned, with more muscle than most boys of his years — 
 a very pleasant picture to look on. Constant exposure to weather 
 had slightly tanned a complexion which otherwise would have 
 been rather fair for his sex. A certain look of gravity — which, 
 however, was only a look — gave somewhat of an intellectual turn 
 to his whole appearance and manner; and he was a boy of more 
 than ordinary ability. He looked, in fact, more like a gentle- 
 man's son than a peasant lad, and his constant association with 
 the family of his patron had tended not a little to promote and 
 keep up a natural refinement. 
 
 But the boy's chief attraction was in the honest glance of his 
 light clear blue eye. Truth and fun sparkled from those truly 
 Celtic orbs; and one might feel certain that, whatever mischief 
 Thade got into, he would give a truthful account of his exploits, 
 no matter what blame might be the consequence of an honest 
 avowal of his faults. 
 
 His chief fault was a somewhat reckless disposition: not the 
 recklessness of an ungoverned temper — certainly not the reckless- 
 ness of vice. It was rather the result of a natural impetuosity of 
 character common to our race, which too often leads the violent or 
 reckless to do deeds of daring defiance, under ths mistaken im- 
 pression that they are doing deeds of true bravery. 
 
 Such a disposition has all the materials of an intellectual 
 character, and. needs only a guiding hand and a wise director to 
 develop into a character of more than ordinary merit. 
 
 After " Mr. Tom,' ; Miss Kate was the shrine at which Thade 
 offered his homage. Miss Kate had, indeed, taken no ordinary 
 care of the orphan boy. She had taught him more than Iiq 
 could ever have learned in any school. It was she who had pre* 
 pared him for his first confession and for his first communion, 
 and wisely and well had she fulfilled her charge. There was no\ 
 a boy, gentle or simple, in all the country around, who answered 
 the bishop better when the dread ordeal of examination in cate. 
 chism had to be passed. 
 
 Certainly Thade knew his duty well— his duty to God and 
 
j6 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 his duty to his neighbor. If he failed hereafter, it was not for 
 want of knowledge. 
 
 His was a happy preparation for the great battle of life— a 
 battle the result of which is so momentous, that they are indeed 
 accountable and guilty who fail to prepare their children for it. 
 
 Here, in one little moment, the most awful decision may be 
 made. Here, in a passing second of time, we may win or lose a 
 battle that will make our future eternal gain or loss. And sure- 
 ly, if it is disgraceful to find ourselves on the losing side in an 
 earthly conflict, through our own cowardice or ignorance, it is an 
 infinitely worse disgrace to be conquered when we are fighting 
 for our eternal interests. 
 
 Kate O' Grady was as light and joyous a girl as ever trod the 
 shores of Killarney's beautiful lakes. But she was none the less 
 grave when gravity was a duty — none the less wise when wisdom 
 was needed in her household cares. 
 
 And so happy Thade had the very best guidance that an 
 orphan boy could have. He had imparted to him knowledge 
 of the truest kind ; for if we do not know our duty, how can we ful- 
 fill it ? The soldier who goes into battle without any knowledge 
 of the tactics of war, would meet with certain defeat. The 
 Christian who goes into the battle of life without knowing what 
 he must do in order to be on the winning side, is, indeed, in a 
 critical position. And, besides knowledge, he must have exer- 
 cised his art, he must have used his arms, he must have tried his 
 metal. 
 
 And so, from his early years, Thade was taught both to know, 
 and to put in practice what he knew. Hence, when the hour of 
 temptation came, terrible as it was, he was well prepared. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 77 
 
 CHAPTER TV. 
 
 NOT ALL SMOOTH WATER. 
 
 He is brave who dares to do 
 
 The right, however fools may taunt. 
 
 46 You're a coward l" 
 
 "I'm not." 
 
 " But I say yo'.i are, and I dare you to do it." 
 
 Now there is nothing a fine, high-spirited boy hates so much 
 as to be called a coward, and Thade was no exception to the 
 general rule. Unquestionably, boys have not always right ideas 
 on the subject of courage, and with all Tirade's careful training, 
 there was a weak point there. Many a boy has simply become a 
 coward because he did not choose to bear the reputation of being 
 one — a reputation not given him by the good and wise, but by 
 those who were cowards of the basest kind themselves. 
 
 " You know I am not a coward. Who saved you when you 
 upset the boat on the lakes last summer ?" 
 
 It was a fact, indeed. Thade had gone on a boating expedi- 
 tion with some other lads during the preceding summer. They 
 had upset the boat, as boys will do in their wild fun, with little 
 thought as to the probable consequences of their rash act. 
 
 Death seemed certain. Only one could swim — (what fatality 
 is it which prevents boys from learning so useful and desirable an 
 accomplishment?) — and that one boy was Thade. The instinct 
 of self-preservation is strong, and it might certainly have been 
 supposed that Thade would have saved himself, and left the lads, 
 whom he had often warned, to their fate. 
 
78 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 But Thade was brave, truly brave, and he had that self-sacri- 
 ficing generosity which invariably accompanies such a disposi- 
 tion. The idea of saving himself never seemed to have occurred 
 to him; and yet he was as young and life was quite as dear to 
 him as to any of his companions. 
 
 The capsizing of the boat had flung^allthe boys into the water. 
 Thade seized the nearest boy, who was evidently unable to keep 
 himself afloat, called out to the other two to cling to the capsized 
 boat, and had landed his prize, as we may well call it, and re- 
 turned for another, before help was sent in Answer to the shouts 
 of the terrified boys. 
 
 Clearly Thade was not a coward; but he was afraid of doing 
 wrong — afraid as only a good and brave boy may be. The 
 coward trembles before the petty tyranny of a companion, or 
 the idle taunts of a fool. The brave boy fears God, because God 
 is his Maker, his Master, and his Lord. He fears because he 
 loves, for divine fear is but another form of perfect charity. 
 
 So the boys did ill to taunt Thade with being a coward, and 
 they were half ashamed of themselves when the taunt was uttered. 
 But boys often act with little thought, and do harm to themselves 
 and others the extent of which they are very far from realizing. 
 Moreover, boys do not like to be baffled in their plans, good or 
 bad, and, human nature being what it is, the boys were determined 
 that Thade should do as they desired. They were not going to 
 be disappointed, nor did they like to own that Thade was right 
 and they were wrong, though they knew it perfectly well. Alas ! 
 how much pride has had to do with human sin since the devil 
 dared Eve to disobey her Maker. 
 
 " You know I am not a coward, boys, but 1 don't like to — 
 to—" 
 
 Thade hesitated. We did not say he was quite perfect — who 
 is ? He did not like to do wrong, but lie had not quite moral 
 courage enough to say so. You see, after all, moral courage is a 
 much higher gift than physical courage, and it is far less com 
 >mon. 
 
 You will see a man do deeds of the utmost daring which only 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 79 
 
 require great physical courage. You will see men peril their 
 lives again and again to save a comrade or gain a point of van- 
 tage on the battle-field. Yet these same men will stay away 
 from Mass, will neglect their religious duties, even if a little word 
 of ridicule is said of them — sometimes when no such word is 
 said, and when they only fear it. 
 
 Are they brave men ? I think not; they are the veriest cowards. 
 
 They will get great applause — and they know it — for their 
 deeds of physical daring; flaey will meet with gibes and con- 
 tempt — for awhile, at least — if they have the moral courage to 
 practice their religion. 
 
 It is a bad choice. The applause of men passes away with the 
 breath that utters it: the applause of God and the holy angels 
 will be proclaimed before the whole world at the Day of Judg- 
 ment, and will last forever. 
 
 " Oh, he's afraid of Miss Kate." 
 
 They wanted to touch Thade in a sore point. No boy likes 
 to own that he is under any sort of control to a woman. They 
 forget how Jesus obeyed Mary in the holy house of Nazareth. 
 They forget that .he men who have distinguished themselves 
 most in after life were generally those who, when boys, were the 
 most obedient to their mothers. 
 
 " I'm not afraid of Miss Kate or of Miss any one else," replied 
 Thade, with a toss of his head which showed that the shafts of 
 ridicule were telling. 
 
 " Oh, you're not afraid, ov coorse," said James Murphy, " we 
 all know that; but I don't see why you can't have a bit of divar- 
 sion, as well as another boy." 
 
 " Don't you sej he's the makin's of a gentleman in him ?" said 
 impudent Joe Flanagan. "He won't demean himself to run 
 races with the like of us." 
 
 All of which was exceedingly galling to Thade's high spirit, 
 as it was intended to be. 
 
 "Oh, come, Thade," said the very boy he had saved from 
 drowning; " don't let the chaps have that to throw in your face. 
 Who'll be the wiser ? I suppose you know how to ride a race 
 as well as to swim a mile." 
 
80 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 It was a well-told shot, and very worthy of its suggester, the 
 devil. 
 
 It seemed to poor Thade that all his honor and glory and fame 
 as a runner and a swimmer was melting away, and would soon 
 disappear from human gaze, if he did not in some way distinguish 
 himself as an equestrian. Poor Thade ! he was not the first who 
 lost his well-earned fame by attempting what was beyond his 
 power. 
 
 Now, Brian Bom, Mr. Tom's horse, was an object of Thade's 
 special affection. He had the sole charge of the splendid and 
 spirited animal — much too spirited, Mr. O'Grady thought, even 
 for his son; for what call had he with a racer? But Mr. Tom 
 thought otherwise. What young man of two- and- twenty ^ever 
 admitted that his horse was too spirited ? If any boy ever did 
 make such an admission, he certainly was not an Irishman. 
 
 Certainly Thade would far rather have suffered any injury 
 himself, no matter how serious, than to have allowed any harm 
 to happen to the horse, and the condition of his equine charge 
 proved that his devotion was practical. 
 
 Both Mr. O'Grady and Tom had charged Thade strictly never 
 to ride Brian Boru beyond a w T alk. They had their reasons, and 
 wise ones. Thade was a high-spirited boy, mrpulsive-^nd mis- 
 chievous, though not in the worst sense of the word. They quite 
 anticipated that he would be tempted by other lads to run races 
 when he took the horse to water morning and evening at the 
 lakes, and they both assumed that a strict prohibition would be 
 his best safeguard. 
 
 Of course Thade promised, and most certainly he intended to 
 keep his promise. But Thade was mortal. 
 
 " Come on, boys," he said, when he could stand the bantering 
 no longer, or thought he could not. He did not know how 
 greatly he would have enhanced his reputation for courage if he 
 had withstood — how he would have secured for himself a charac- 
 ter for firmness which would have saved him from future as- 
 saults, if he had only acted according to the dictates of his con- 
 science. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 8l 
 
 " I thought you would not like to be a * Molly,' " shouted Joe. 
 
 Even then Thade hesitated. Was it for this absurd taunt he 
 was going to disobey the best master boy ever had ? 
 
 The -race was run, when Thade found himself flying along the 
 road at a more rapid pace than he had ever thought possible, his 
 brain wildly excited, as a spirited boy's always will be when he 
 rides a noble horse. 
 
 He dashed wildly on, leaving his companions far behind. He 
 won the race, certainly, but at what a price ! The noble animal, 
 finding his rider had no control over him, swerved hither and 
 thither in his mad career. At last he dashed against a huge 
 boulder at the side of the road, flung Thade off on his head, and 
 the poor brute lay himself on the roadside an apparent helpless 
 mass of suffering. 
 
 When Thade came to himself he found he was not much hurt, 
 he was only stunned ; but the noble animal which had met with 
 such a careless, reckless rider, was hopelessly, and, for all he 
 knew, fatally injured. 
 
82 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YOR3££ 
 
 CHAPTER Vo 
 
 THE TEMPTER AGAIN. 
 
 Mother of Jesus, Lady dear, 
 
 Help the sinful and suffering here; 
 Listen to the sinner's cry — 
 
 Aid those who live and those who die. 
 
 "Here comes Thade and Brian Boru," exclaimed Tom. 
 
 " Rather late," observed Mr. O' Grady, without looking up 
 from the paper, which he usually perused at his breakfast. 
 
 Bat Kate O'Grady's quick eye had seen that though Thade 
 and Brian Boru were unquestionably passing the house, it was 
 not in the usual fashion. 
 
 Thade, who had a fine taste for music, might generally be 
 heard whistling some lively and popular air in the intervals of 
 addressing affectionate observations to the horse. He would 
 pass the windows on his way to the stables with as quick a trot 
 and as jaunty an air as was consistent with orders in regard to his 
 charge and his own ideas of respect to his master. 
 
 But this morning Thade certainly was not riding; he was not 
 whistling; he was not even giving the passing glance that he 
 always gave. 
 
 Clearly something was seriously wrong ; but whether with Thade 
 or Brian Boru, Kate O'Grady could not tell. She knew her father's 
 quick temper — the temper that was so difficult to rouse, and so 
 awful when it was aroused— and she trembled for her favorite, 
 feeling quite sure that harm had come to him or his charge, 
 knowing well that her father, in his anger, might not stop to 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 83 
 
 discriminate between an accident and a negligence or a serious 
 fault. 
 
 She looked at Tom, who appeared not to have any misgivings. 
 If there was wrong, clearly, the sooner it was remedied, the bet- 
 ter; and the more quickly her father was made aware of it, the 
 better. 
 
 " Shall you ever have finished breakfast?" she said, rising from 
 table, with an appearance of gaiety she was far from feeling. 
 
 " Oh, I'm done," and Tom rose also. " I will go and have 
 a look at Brian Boru." 
 
 " I will go with you," said Kate, who was lingering at the 
 ^oor, and had noticed that her father was too much absorbed in 
 the paper he was reading to be likely to follow them. 
 
 " Tom, I'm afraid something has happened to the horse or to 
 Thade. I noticed them as they passed the window, and was 
 afraid my father would see it." 
 
 " Pooh, nonsense, Kate; you're always fearing things," ob- 
 served Tom, with a young brother's usual self-assurance and 
 self-confidence. He had not noticed anything wrong, so there 
 could not be anything to notice. 
 
 ' * Well, I hope you are right ; but — ' ' 
 
 They had just reached the stable door, and a pitiable sight met 
 their eyes. Brian Boru was manifestly hopelessly lamed, covered 
 with dust and dirt, and how far otherwise injured none could tell 
 without careful examination. Thade lay on the ground in an 
 agony of grief and despair. 
 
 Tom went to the horse at once, too completely overcome to 
 utter a single word. 
 
 Kate went to the prostrate boy, who, whatever might have 
 happened, seemed to her woman's heart an object of the deepest 
 pity. 
 
 "Thade!" 
 
 Thade turned his head a little when he heard the voice of his 
 young mistress. It was the first time he had ever feared to look 
 in her face, but he dared not do so now. 
 
 Tom was recovering the shock which had stunned him at first, 
 
84 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 and he seized the boy by the collar, shook him roughly, and set 
 him on his feet. 
 
 " Gently, gently !" exclaimed Kate, afraid lest interference 
 might do harm, and yet dreading the rising anger in Tom's eyes. 
 " Gently, indeed ! 1 don't think the young scoundrel has 
 been very gentle with my horse." Another shake; and indeed 
 Tom was justified in his anger. " Here is the finest racer in Kil- 
 larney, that my father gave such a sum of money for not a 
 month ago, as far as I can see hopelessly lamed, and you talk 
 of being gentle ! Wait till my father comes, ' ' and Tom turned 
 in haste to look for him. 
 
 " Oh, stay, Tom, stay — at least wait till we hear more — till we 
 know how it happened." 
 
 It must be admitted that Tom was forbearing when he com- 
 plied with her request. 
 
 " Thade, how has this happened ?" 
 No answer. 
 
 Cl Thade, what have you done?" 
 No answer. 
 
 " Come, Thade, this will never do. I have taught you to be 
 a truthful boy, and you know your Blessed Mother in heaven 
 will not love you if you are not honest in word and deed. The 
 truth must be known sooner or later; be a man, and tell it now 
 yourself." 
 
 With many sobs and tears and groans of real heart-felt an- 
 guish, Thade told his story. Told how he had been tempted by 
 the boys, until, believing that they only wanted " a bit of fun," 
 he had yielded to the temptation, and blamed himself bitterly. 
 There was no excuse; he knew it well. 
 
 He had been fully instructed, had advantages which these 
 poor lads were never likely to possess. He had friends such as 
 they could never hope to have. He had an education which at 
 that day was rare indeed. And yet for a few mocking words he 
 had disobeyed the most express commands of his employer — of 
 his good master. He had disobeyed commands given again and 
 again, and there could be no possible excuse for his fault. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 85 
 
 But we are all too apt, both in blaming ourselves and in blam- 
 ing others, to look more at the consequences of a fault than at the 
 fault itself. 
 
 It was so in this case. If Thade had not injured his master's 
 property so seriously (Tom declared the horse would never be 
 fit to run again), he would have thought very little of the act of 
 disobedience. It is often well for us that the consequences of our 
 faults are so serious, for then we view them very differently to 
 what we might do if it were otherwise. 
 
 Yet parents are too often cruelly unjust to their children in 
 such matters. They will punish with severity, almost with 
 cruelty, some fault which has caused them serious loss and incon- 
 venience, though it may not have been culpable in itself; while 
 they will pass over some serious matter which has been a grave 
 offense against God, because it has not touched their own feelings 
 or interests. 
 
 Mr. O' Grady was so absorbed in his paper, that it was some 
 time before he rose from the table; but when he did he recollect- 
 ed Kate's remark about the horse, and though he attached but 
 little importance to it, he thought he might as well go to the 
 stable and see for himself if anything was wrong. 
 
 The sight that met his gaze when he arrived there held him 
 spell-bound for a moment, but only for a moment. His temper, 
 as we know, was hasty. The condition of the horse spoke for 
 itself. Tom's attitude of utter despair, Thade's tear-swollen and 
 guilty face, and Kate's attitude of fear and anxiety. 
 
 " You young scoundrel, you have destroyed the horse '."ex- 
 claimed Mr. O' Grady. 
 
 A riding-whip lay at hand. It was but a moment to seize it, 
 and to inflict a shower of blows on Thade's shoulders. He cer- 
 tainly deserved a flogging, but, to his credit be it said, he felt the 
 shame of his conduct far more than any corporal punishment, 
 however severe. But the sharp pain seemed to bring him to 
 himself. Before this he had been stunned and stupid. Now he 
 could no longer bear to face the master whom he had so griev- 
 ously offended, and with one wild cry he fled out of the stable 
 and into the street. 
 
86 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 Mr. O'Grady's anger cooled almost as soon as it had risen, 
 but he did not follow Thade. The boy would come back, he 
 thought, no doubt, in the evening — where else had he to go ?— 
 and the horse needed immediate attention. 
 
 Thade, after running wildly for some time he knew not 
 whither, came to a sudden pause. Where was he to go? What 
 was he to do with himself? In his then frame of mind, he 
 thought he could never face his master again. He had made 
 but few acquaintances, he had no near relations, nor did he wish 
 any one to see him in his present plight. 
 
 The doors of the cathedral were open, as the doors of a Cath- 
 olic church are ever open to receive the wanderer and the weary, 
 and with little thought of prayer or God at the moment, Thade 
 went in and flung himself prostrate on the ground, in a dark cor- 
 ner, in all the stupor of grief. 
 
 The day passed on, but he took no note of time. Evening 
 came, but still he did not stir. At last a care-taker noticed him 
 lying on the ground, and told him he could not remain there for, 
 the night. 
 
 He rose up slowly to leave the church, and then a circum- 
 stance happened which changed the whole course of his life. 
 
OR, HOW T.IADE BECAME A BANKER. 87 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ROSALINE. 
 
 Airy, fairy Rosaline, 
 
 Gentle, loving Rosaline, 
 
 Beauty gains more grace from you— 
 
 Kind and grateful, good and true. 
 
 "Well, really, Mr. Maxwell, I wonder you have allowed that 
 child to be brought up a Roman Catholic. It will certainly be 
 an injury to her prospects in life, though the heiress of the firm 
 of Maxwell & Co. may well defy adventitious circumstances." 
 
 " I will not do otherwise. It was my poor wife's last request 
 that her child should be brought up with some definite religious 
 views.' And Mr. Maxwell, even as he spoke, seemed to recall 
 the terrible death-bed scene, and to shudder at the recollection. 
 
 He was not a Catholic himself. His wife's death had made 
 an ineffaceable impression on him; but it was a human impres- 
 sion, nothing more, and, as such, it had little effect on his life. 
 
 " I suppose that Irish nurse of hers is the source of the evil, as 
 the Irish seem to be of all the evils in the country, if we are to 
 believe men like — " 
 
 " I know nothing of the Irish, and care nothing for them," re- 
 plied Mr. Maxwell; " but I would certainly like to see Ireland, 
 and half think of crossing the ocean this summer. Will you 
 come?" 
 
 But before this momentous question is answered, we must 
 glance at the history of the little Rosaline, and at the faithful 
 Irish nurse to whom she owed so much. 
 
 Kathleen's remorse, after the death of her mistress, was some-* 
 
SS FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 thing terrible; but happily it was not the remorse of despair. 
 For a little while, indeed, the demon, who was unwilling to let 
 go his prey, fought a battle with her which seemed likely to end 
 on the side of eternal loss. 
 
 She was too thoroughly aware of the consequence of her own 
 neglect of her religious duties to deceive herself on that subject. 
 She had witnessed the terrors of a death-bed unilluminated by 
 even one gleam of hope. She knew perfectly well how this 
 death-bed could have been made one of peace and consolation. 
 It is true, indeed, that those who neglect God in their days of 
 health and happiness, cannot expect Him to work miracles for 
 them in their hour of death and despair. So far the unhappy 
 young mother had only to thank herself for her misery. But 
 Kathleen knew that she would have to answer at the judgment 
 seat of God for the sins which had caused her to fail in the mo- 
 ment when she might have given such blessed help to a dying 
 fellow-creature. 
 
 Her first thought was despair, or, rather, this was her first 
 temptation. It is a subtle temptation — a temptation too often 
 used successfully ; and what does the tempter care whether he 
 destroys his victims by one snare or another ? 
 
 It was no use, she thought, to repent now, after all the evils 
 she had done — as if the good and merciful God, by allowing her 
 to live so long, was not actually calling her to repentance. She 
 was ashamed to go to the priest after having remained away so 
 many years from the sacraments; but happily she thought how 
 much more ashamed she would beat the Day of Judgment, if she 
 did not now make her peace with God, and obtain pardon in the 
 way which He himself has appointed. 
 
 But grace triumphed. With many groans and many tears, 
 Kathleen went with her sad story to the priest, and she found 
 not only pardon, but peace and hope. Often in after life would 
 she quote her own example to some poor girl who had remained 
 perhaps for years absent from the sacraments. She would tell 
 her how she had feared and dreaded to confess her sin, how 
 cleverly the devil had tried to discourage her by this means, when 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 89 
 
 all other means had failed; how long she had hesitated, and 
 how she had trembled at the very thought of entering the con- 
 fessional. 
 
 But, as we have said, grace triumphed. The devil's ways are 
 ways of cruelty and misery. God's ways are ways of peace and 
 joy. The devil knew very well what peace and rest she would 
 find in the Sacrament of Penance, and so he did his evil best to 
 keep her from it. 
 
 There was one duty for her now, and that was the duty of 
 reparation. It is a duty which even our own conscience must 
 tell us that God will demand from us. It is a duty which even 
 the world requires. If we have done evil, we must atone for the 
 evil; if we have done injury to others, we must, by all means in 
 our power, repair that injury. 
 
 Unhappily this duty is too often neglected, too seldom consid- 
 ered as it should be; and if the reparation is not made here, most 
 certainly it will have to be made hereafter. 
 
 Kathleen's first thought was to beg admittance into some con- 
 vent as a lay sister, where she might, by prayer and penance, 
 make reparation to God Almighty for her sin. But she owed a 
 reparation, also, to those with whom she lived. She owed a 
 reparation to the Protestant servants to whom she had given so 
 fearful an example, for however they might laugh at her religion, 
 they knew well how she ought to have practiced it. 
 
 She owed reparation to her master, and, above all, she felt 
 that she could best repair the sin against her mistress by devoting 
 herself, heart and soul, to the little baby, Rosaline, and, with her 
 master's permission, she took entire charge of the child. 
 
 Mr. Maxwell did not concern himself, as she grew older, as to 
 what religion she was taught, or, indeed, as to whether she was 
 taught any religion. If she looked well and seemed happy, that 
 was all he asked. 
 
 The question came before him one day, when he found that it 
 was quite time that she should have some regular instruction. 
 Naturally he spoke to Kathleen on the subject, and at her earnest 
 entreaties, the little one was sent to a convent school. 
 
90 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 Such an instance of liberality was far rarer then than it is now, 
 when so many non-Catholic Americans are glad to take advan- 
 tage of the superior education given in our Catholic convents. 
 
 The convents of America have, indeed, distinguished them- 
 selves in that matter before the whole world. May they prosper, 
 and continue their divine work. 
 
 Kathleen had believed it to be her duty to remain in Mr. Max- 
 well's family until her little charge had made her first commu- 
 nion, and until she felt assured that her service was no longer 
 needed. Then she obtained her heart's desire, and she is even 
 now a devoted and faithful lay sister in the very convent where 
 little Rosaline was educated. 
 
 But we have left the gentlemen too long conversing unnoticed. 
 
 The question of a voyage to Europe was soon decided, and 
 every preparation made with that expedition which wealth can 
 always insure. 
 
 Rosaline remained in charge of the nuns — a bright, joyous, 
 amiable child, and with a promise of being as beautiful as she 
 was good. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 9! 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TH ADE'S CHOICE. 
 
 Forevermore she hears us cry, 
 And helps in every misery. 
 
 « Oh, Mother of God ! Mother of God ! Mother of God !" 
 
 It was the cry of poor Thade's broken heart, when his grief 
 found utterance. What was he to do ? Where was he to go ? 
 Certainly, he said to himself, he would never again face his kind 
 friends; and where was he to look for help and shelter? 
 
 He had the firm trust in and the fervent devotion to the Mother 
 of Jesus which has ever been the characteristic of the Irish heart. 
 Young as be was, he said his rosary every night, and when was 
 any one ever forsaken who trusted to the powerful intercession of 
 our Blessed Lady ? 
 
 It was a mere mechanical cry, when he moaned out his prayer, 
 " Mother of God ! Mother of God !" But if human mothers are 
 so full of love — if their hearts are so easily touched when they 
 hear the least cry from the lips of their children — how much more 
 quickly does the Divine Mother hear us, her poor children, for 
 whom she suffered such long hours of agony at the foot of the 
 cross of Jesus. 
 
 As Thade passed out of the church, his foot stumbled over what 
 seemed a small parcel.* He stooped down carelessly to pick it 
 up, but his mind was too absorbed in his grief to pay much atten- 
 tion, for the moment, to anything. 
 
 He held it in his hand for a second or two, doubtful whether 
 
 * A fact, and what follows also happened exactly as it is told. 
 
92 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 he should throw it again on the ground, or leave it on a bench 
 for the owner. A moment more, and it flashed on him that he 
 had a pocket-book in his hand. 
 
 A purse ! 
 
 A moment more, and he had ascertained that it was well filled 
 with gold, and a large sum of money in bank-notes. 
 
 Here, indeed, was good fortune. 
 
 In a moment the boy was himself again. Surely, he thought, 
 the Blessed Virgin herself had put this in his way. Now he could 
 provide for himself. He would go to Dublin, he would go to 
 America, he would make his fortune somewhere and somehow. 
 At all events, he was safe from the terror and dread of going back 
 to his master. 
 
 His good fortune almost stunned him for the moment, but 
 thought is quick. How many things he had settled in his own 
 mind, and acted over in his imagination in a few minutes. 
 
 But the one great thought was the overwhelming joy that he 
 could now provide for himself. 
 
 We must do Thade the justice to say that it was not fear of 
 punishment which made him so desirous to escape. He was too 
 brave and manly a boy to wish to shirk a punishment which he knew 
 he well deserved, as we have said. To his fine and noble nature, 
 the shame and disgrace of having acted so badly toward those to 
 whom he owed so much, was far more terrible than any chastise- 
 ment which could be inflicted on him. He would, he thought, 
 never see them again, until he could show them how truly he 
 had repented — until he had made a name for himself in some way. 
 
 Poor boy ! he little knew how difficult it would be to get name 
 and fame; but youth is happily sanguine. 
 
 They should be proud of him when they would see him next. 
 And he would buy the most magnificent horse for Mr. Tom. I 
 am not sure that he had not decided on jewels and silks for Miss 
 Kate. 
 
 Poor Thade ! nay, rather let us say, rich Thade. Rich in his 
 own generous, unselfish Irish heart. Better be Thade giving 
 imaginary presents to those he loved, which he most certainly 
 
OR, HOW TIIADE BECAME A BANKER. 93 
 
 would have made real if he could, than your miserly boy, who 
 thinks only of himself and his own selfish interests. 
 
 As he left the church porch, he began to hum a Litany of the 
 Blessed Virgin softly to himself. 
 
 He turned to take a last look at the familiar spot, and to make 
 a last reverence to the large and beautiful statue of our Blessed 
 Lady outside the church. 
 
 But what has happened ? 
 
 What change is this ? Thade has ceased his joyous melody. 
 He turns pale as death; a cold sweat bursts out on his fine, open 
 forehead; he trembles in every limb. 
 
 ' * My God ! " he mutters, in accents of alarm and horror ; < ' I 
 was near being a thief." 
 
 Never that, Thade, boy, whatever harm you may do. 
 
 A thief ! The very thought was terrible. 
 
 As he turned and looked at the Mother of Jesus; she, too, 
 looked at him — one long, tender, reproachful glance. 
 
 In one moment he realized his danger. He saw the peril from 
 which he had been saved. 
 
 The money was not his own, and, at any cost, it must be re~ 
 turned to the owner. 
 
 Thade flew home. The fear of being tempted to sin if he kept 
 the money a moment longer in his possession far outweighed the 
 lesser fear. 
 
 He never even thought of what would be said to him, nor did 
 he even for a moment consider that he was performing an act 
 of virtue. 
 
 As he came near the house his courage cooled a little, but his 
 determination, happily, never faltered for a moment. 
 
 Whom was he to speak to ? How could he dare show his face 
 to any of the family ? 
 
 Mr. O'Grady's garden was divided from that of his neighbor 
 by a close, thick hedge, which, however, was high enough to 
 divide, but not too high for verbal communication. Thade re- 
 membered this, and went to the servant, whom he knew very 
 well. She had heard his trouble, and pitied him sincerely, for 
 Thade was a general favorite. 
 
94 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 He told her his story, and that all he wanted was to get one 
 word with Miss Kate, and then he would ran off again. 
 
 This was easily managed. 
 
 Kate came to the hedge, and Thade cried out eagerly, " 01\ 
 Miss Kate, Miss Kate, I've found some money; for God's sake 
 take it," and he pushed the pocket-book into her hand, and pre- 
 pared to run away. 
 
 But he could not resist the old associations of obedience 
 and affection, and when Kate called him back eagerly, he re- 
 turned. 
 
 " What is this, Thade ? Come to me. I assure you my father 
 was as anxious as any of us for your return." 
 
 "Oh, Miss Kate, sure I could never look one of you in the 
 face again — you that reared me and cared for me all my life, 
 and for me to go and kill Mr. Tom's horse, that I'd have died 
 for any day." 
 
 It certainly was not quite clear whether Thade would have 
 died for Tom, or the horse, or both ; but Kate knew that his in- 
 tentions, however wrongly expressed, were genuine, and she 
 believed that he would have died willingly any day in his mas- 
 ter's service. 
 
 " But what is this about the purse ? Where did you get it ? 
 Where did it come from ? ' ' 
 
 " Well, Miss Kate, sure I thought the Blessed Virgin sent it to 
 me to help me out of all my troubles, and I was just going to 
 run away with it, and go to the devil entirely, when she just gave 
 me one look, and sure that was enough." 
 
 "But," exclaimed Kate in amazement, "where did you see 
 the Blessed Virgin, Thade?" She was, indeed, far too much 
 astonished to question his assertions very carefully. 
 
 "Is it where I saw the Blessed Mother of God ? Sure it was 
 just where she is, outside the church, there ; and she looked at 
 me so sorrowful like." 
 
 "Well, but where did you get the purse?" replied Kate, who 
 did not feel disposed to contest Thade 's statement. 
 
 "You see, Miss Kate, I ran to the church and hid myseli 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 95 
 
 there, for I was just dead with shame for what I had done, and I 
 think I was praying all the time to the Blessed Virgin unknowns t 
 to me, and when it got quite dark I had to come away, and fell 
 over that purse; and I said to myself, ' Glory be to God, Thade, 
 you can go to America, or London, or anywhere now, and make 
 your fortune, and not come home till you'll be a credit to them 
 all.' And I was just off, when I looked back to bid the Blessed 
 Virgin good-bye — on the statue, you mind, outside the door— and 
 she just looked at me, Miss Kate, like you might do if I was 
 doing wrong, and all in a moment I knew what it was, glory be 
 to God ! It was the same as if she said, ' Thade, you're a thief 
 if you take that purse, and I'm sorry for you;' and sure I would 
 not have her sorry for me, that is the joy of heaven, and shed 
 more tears for us than all the world put together, except her 
 blessed Son !" 
 
 " Thank God, Thade, you are not a thief," replied Kate. 
 She was deeply touched by the boy's simple narrative, and did 
 not doubt he had indeed received some miraculous grace in his 
 hour of need. 
 
 "I will take the purse to my father," she continued. " He 
 will know best what to do with it. He will be pleased with 
 your honesty; and believe me, Thade, we will none of us ever 
 reproach you with what has happened. It was an accident; but 
 do, dear boy, remember that the fault of disobedience would 
 have been equally great, even had no accident happened. It 
 may have been a great mercy for you to have got such a lesson, 
 hard as it seems, at the beginning of your life." 
 
 Kate was no hand at " preaching," and so she said no more; 
 but her holy life was the best sermon she could have given to 
 any one. 
 
 u I can let you into the stable, and no one will see you there 
 to-night. To-morrow my father will tell you what to do." 
 
 Thade complied very cheerfully with the directions of his young 
 mistress. He knew very well that he might travel far and wide 
 before he would find such a home, and such good and true 
 friends. 
 
96 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 He was sobered and saddened, but he was sobered and sad- 
 dened the right way; not with the depression of self-love, but 
 with the noble and invigorating sadness of holy fear. 
 
 Before he lay down to sleep that night — yes, before he even 
 tasted the good supper which Kate had brought him, guessing 
 that he had been fasting all day — he knelt down and thanked 
 God for all His mercies to him ; and when he had satisfied his 
 hunger, he said his Rosary with fervent and honest devotion, and 
 made a resolution, which he faithfully kept, that /or the rest of 
 his life he would be obedient to his superiors, and more than 
 ever devout to his Mother Mary. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 97 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "THE BOY'S HONEST, AFTER ALL." 
 
 An honest heart, that never liked a fraud, 
 Nor gave deceit from out his clear blue eye. 
 
 " See what Thade's brought, father !" exclaimed Kate, as she 
 entered the room where Mr. O' Grady sat, looking as if he had 
 never stirred since morning, for he was occupied, as he had been 
 then, with a newspaper. 
 
 Kate knew by long experience that the straightforward way 
 was the best way with her hot-tempered but excellent father. 
 
 "A purse ! So well filled, too. Where did you get it?" 
 
 Kate told him the story simply, as Thade had told her. 
 
 "Humph! Belongs to some tourist, I suppose. Well, the 
 boy's honest, after all." 
 
 "Father!" 
 
 " Oh, just like you women. You think any one you like is 
 right." 
 
 Kate was too wise to offer any contradiction. Mr. O' Grady 
 was looking really pleased, but, man-like, he would not give his 
 womankind the satisfaction of hearing any expressions of his sat- 
 isfaction. 
 
 "That young scoundrel has given trouble enough for one day, 
 and now to go and find this purse. Are you sure he didn't steal 
 it?" 
 
 "You dear old dad!" 
 
 " W r ant to get at the soft side of me, eh? I see. I suppose 
 you've cried over that boy, and killed the fatted calf for him. 
 
98 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 Shouldn't wonder if you had a hot supper dressed for him on 
 purpose.' ' 
 
 " I gave him some bread and milk, and told him to go and 
 sleep in the stable, and that you would see him in the morning." 
 
 "Did you tell him I would see him with a horse-whip ? No, 
 of course you didn't. I have a great mind to — " 
 
 But what Mr. O' Grady's mind was inclined to, remains un- 
 known. 
 
 "Hallo, Tom, here's that boy of yours come home with a 
 purse of gold that he's found or stolen." 
 
 "Faith, sir, I wish I'd find one." 
 
 Tom was always short of cash. Was there ever a boy yet who 
 had all he desired ? 
 
 " I suppose, now, I must go to the police, and go round to all 
 the hotels and give notice, or we'll have that boy taken up and 
 put in jail on suspicion, if any one finds out what he's got." 
 
 "Can't you write, father?" 
 
 Kate had been occupying herself during this conversation in 
 providing pens and paper; but Mr. O' Grady would not con- 
 descend to notice her. 
 
 Men have their grievances, as well as women ; and we must do 
 them the justice to say that when they have, they generally do 
 their best to make them known. 
 
 A note was presently dispatched to the police and to the 
 hotels, Mr. O'Grady insisting on writing all himself, though Tom 
 and Kate were quite willing to help him. But if he permitted 
 them, how could he make himself out a martyr to Thade's sins 
 " and vicious propensity for finding purses "? 
 
 Mr. O' Grady wrote to the police, and the writing ran thus: 
 
 "Sir: — A lad in my employment has found a purse in the 
 Catholic Church, late last night. It is at present in my posses- 
 sion, and will be restored to the owner on his making personal 
 application for it, and describing purse and contents." 
 
 " There they are !" exclaimed Tom, as, on the following morn- 
 ing, the O'Gradys sat at breakfast. 
 
 "Who and where?" inquired Mr. O 'Grady, not without a 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 99 
 
 slight gleam of malice. He was fond of having a hit at Tom's 
 random speeches. 
 
 " Who — party unknown, sir, but suspect their errand is the 
 purse; where — well, I should say at the hall-door by this time." 
 
 A fact sufficiently patent and self-evident, since a loud ring was 
 heard at that very moment. 
 
 A few minutes more, and the courteous and gentlemanly host 
 of the Lake Hotel was introducing two American gentlemen " of 
 fortune and distinction " to the O'Grady family. 
 
 "We have ventured to intrude on you early, sir," observed the 
 elder of the two gentlemen, who had just presented his card, and 
 who was a New York friend to whom the reader has been already 
 introduced — the father of the pretty Rosaline. 
 
 Mr. O'Grady assured his visitors that no apology was neces- 
 sary — tourists were privileged. 
 
 A few minutes served to convince all parties that there had - 
 been no mistake, and that no fraud or deception was intended. 
 Mr. Maxwell stated the amount of money which was contained in 
 the purse, and it was found intact. His initials, too, were en- 
 graved on it, so there could be no doubt. 
 
 " But where," asked his companion, Mr. Hillman, "is the boy 
 who has found this valuable purse ? He must be well rewarded 
 for his honesty." 
 
 Thade was summoned to the parlor, much to his dismay ; and, 
 much to the amazement of the gentlemen, he fell on his knees 
 when he entered^ more like a culprit than one who was about to 
 receive a reward. 
 
 But the honest , open face certainly did not suggest any mistrust. 
 
 "O sir, O master, if you'll forgive me — " 
 
 The story of Thade 's misadventure was soon told, and both 
 gentlemen were deeply interested. 
 
 His appearance, his manner and his address were greatly in 
 his favor, and he had an air of refinement beyond his station — 
 partly the result of natural gifts, and partly a consequence of the 
 association with superiors who, while they did not seek to raise 
 him above his position, had certainly treated him with more than 
 ordinary familiarity. 
 
XOO FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK,* 
 
 "Well, my boy,'' said Mr. Maxwell, "I am sure your master 
 will forgive you freely. I will ask it as a personal favor to my- 
 self; " and, handing him a bank note of some value, "here is 
 what I hope will help to set you up in an honest and humble 
 career, and I will send you a further remittance from New York 
 from time to time." 
 
 But, to the surprise of both gentlemen, Thade firmly but cour- 
 teously refused the proffered reward. 
 
 " Is it to pay me for being honest and for pleasing the Blessed 
 Virgin ? Oh, no, sir. Indeed, I am grateful to you both, gen- 
 tlemen," he said, with the ready tact of his nature when he saw 
 that his refusal of the gift had given pain; " but I could not take 
 it. If the master will forgive me and trust me again — and he shall 
 never, never repent it — that is all that I'll take from any one, and 
 God knows it's more than I deserve." 
 
 Thade was not to be shaken in his resolution, and the two gen- 
 tlemen went away with a new view of the Irish character, and 
 certainly more impressed than they could well express. 
 
 " A noble boy," exclaimed Mr. Maxwell, as they drove back 
 to the hotel to prepare for a day's pleasure. 
 
 Mr. Hillman said nothing, but it was quite evident that he was 
 deeply absorbed in thought during the remainder of the day. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 THADE FINDS NEW FRIENDS. 
 
 " I have no son, Mr. 0' Grady; my wife died immediately after 
 the birth of our little girl. We were very deeply attached to one 
 another, and I never even thought of marrying again." 
 
 " But you are still a young man; you may change your 
 mind." 
 
 " Well, sir, I believe that I shall not change my mind, but, as 
 you say, it is possible. I wish to adopt Thade, and I want some 
 one who will have my interest at heart in my business. When 
 my girl is a little older, I will travel with her in Europe for sev- 
 eral years. I have trustworthy clerks; but you know, sir, what a 
 difference it makes to any business to have one whose heart is de- 
 voted to your interests, as well as his head. ' ' 
 
 "I will not stand in Thade's way for a moment, " replied 
 Mr. O'Grady. " He must be the person to decide. He is quite 
 old enough. But you had better hear more of his history before 
 you see him. ,, 
 
 Mr. Maxwell listened with the attentive consideration of a man 
 who knows the subject spoken of to be one of grave importance. 
 
 "And do you tell me, sir," he exclaimed, rn amazement, 
 ** that there are people in this country who will deliberately try to 
 buy and sell a man's religion in this way !" 
 
 " It is, unfortunately, too true. No doubt some of the Protest- 
 ants who act thus think that they are influenced by good mo- 
 tives; but, for a great majority, there is every reason to believe 
 that the whole affair is a mere trail? c in souls — a traffic by which 
 they benefit their temporal interests, which is their only concern. 
 It you knew something of our people, and if you had been, as I 
 have been, an eye-witness of their courage and constancy under 
 trial, you would at least believe that they had a faith which taught 
 
102 FROM KILLARXEY TO NEW YORK; 
 
 them to do and suffer as no man could suffer or act for a mere 
 opinion." 
 
 " You will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that, though I do not 
 profess your religion myself, I have allowed my little girl to be 
 brought up a Catholic, and that she is at present being educated 
 in a convent school." 
 
 Mr. O'Grady was surprised, but the knowledge of this circum- 
 stance removed what he felt to be one great objection to parting 
 with Thade. 
 
 He knew very well that those who are proof against adversity 
 are not always proof against prosperity — that there was no more 
 dangerous temptation to the young than sudden advancement in 
 their wordly prospects ; and much as he would desire to see Thade 
 advanced in life, he certainly would not desire that this advance- 
 ment should be purchased by the sacrifice of a single principle. 
 
 Mr. Maxwell's friend was listening to this assurance with an 
 indifference which was wholly assumed, to hide the deepest 
 feeling. 
 
 " Well," he said, "gentlemen, I guess Thade had better set- 
 tle the proposal for himself." 
 
 Thade was summoned, looking, certainly, very much brighter 
 than on the preceding day. 
 
 " Thade," said Mr. O'Grady, " here is an offer for you. Mr. 
 Maxwell proposes to take you back with him to New York ; to 
 give you the education of a gentleman, and put you in a position 
 which you can certainly never expect to hold in this country. I 
 think I can promise for him that he will never seek to interfere 
 with your religion. It is for you to decide this important point. 
 What do you say ?" 
 
 Thade was fairly bewildered, as well he might be. For a few 
 moments he stared in blank amazement at the two gentlemen- 
 Then he seemed suddenly to realize the offer that had been made 
 to him. • 
 
 "Is it to leave you, and Mr. Tom, and Brian Boru, and Miss 
 Kate?" 
 
 Mr. O'Grady smiled at the incongruous collection of the objects 
 of his affection. 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAMF A BANKER. IO3 
 
 "Well, something like it, Thade. I'm afraid I'm rather old 
 to travel now, and, you see, Mr. Maxwell could not adopt us all." 
 
 " Is it to go out of it, and never see one of you again, sir ?" 
 
 " Well, you might see some of us again, Thade. But this is 
 a serious matter." 
 
 " I think you will have no cause to regret it, if you come with 
 me, Thade. I have a large business in New York, and I have no 
 son of my own to take any of the care from me. I will have you 
 educated as if you were my own child, and when you are old 
 enough, I will place you in a confidential position in my bank* 
 I told you, boy, that I believe you to be thoroughly upright and 
 honest, and that this is the great consideration which induces me 
 to make you this offer." 
 
 Thade 's eyes were filling fast with tears. He began clearly to 
 understand the matter. Naturally, he wished to advance him- 
 self, and he was old enough to have some idea of the importance 
 and value of the offer which was made to him. But his* affec- 
 tions were strong. He had that happy disregard of consequences 
 and indifference to pecuniary advantage which one so often sees 
 in our people, and which one scarcely knows whether to admire 
 or deplore. 
 
 But affection seemed destined to carry the day. He flung him- 
 self at his master's feet in a passion of tears. 
 
 " I'll never leave you, sir — never I" 
 
 But Mr. O'Grady was too well aware of the consequences in- 
 volved in this decision to allow him to make it thus. He asked 
 the gentlemen to leave Thade an hour, to think the matter over 
 quietly. With this request they willingly complied, and, on 
 their return, Thade, following the advice of Mr. O'Grady and of 
 Miss Kate, decided gratefully to accept the splendid position he 
 was offered. 
 
 He was at once taken away to procure an outfit; and when he 
 was presented to his former master, attired in his new clothing, no 
 one could deny that, in appearance at least, he was no disgrace 
 to the station in life which Providence had now assigned him. 
 
104 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK£ 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TEN YEARS LATER. 
 
 Oh, Ireland, mother Ireland, 
 
 My heart still turn: to thee, 
 And longs and pines with constant love, 
 
 Thy holy shores to see. 
 
 " And so, my darling, the wedding-day is fixed, and you are 
 going to my dear old country, my own old Ireland." 
 
 Something like a tear glistened in the great eye of the good 
 lay sister. Ever since the time of St. Colomba, and before it, a 
 passionate love of Ireland has been the born heritage of the Celt. 
 
 The heaviest penance that could be put upon the erring saint 
 was that he should never see Ireland again, and, as the chroni- 
 cler tells us, he came and went with a sere cloth over his eyes and 
 a sod of the land of Atta under his feet, so that when duty 
 called him to his beloved Erin, he might fulfill his penance — so 
 that he might neither see nor touch the earth of his native 
 country. 
 
 Kathleen had now been a nun for some years, but she did not 
 lose her love of Ireland. Perhaps the hardest part of her self- 
 imposed penance had been to renounce all hope of seeing 
 motherland again. If the desire to do so still remained, it only 
 remained as a new source of penance, sacrifice and love. 
 
 She had chosen the name of Magdalen, as one which she be- 
 lieved specially suitable to her sorrow and her love. She had 
 sinned much indeed, for she had sinned against light and 
 knowledge and abundant grace. But her repentance was deep 
 and most truly sincere. Her history was known only to her 
 
OR, HOW THADE BECAME A BANKER. IO$ 
 
 superioress; but it was noticed by all that she lived a life of 
 great austerity — not in great things, this was not permitted by 
 her Holy Rule — but she practiced to the full that higher, far more 
 difficult austerity — the mortification of every sense, faculty and 
 desire in her daily life ; and it was also noticed that she was 
 specially devoted to the interest of young girls who were prepar- 
 ing for service; that she had eloquent and abundant words for 
 them, however reticent she might be towards others, and that 
 she would entreat them, with words of most impressive earnest- 
 ness, to give good example, and to strengthen themselves for their 
 duties by frequent attendance at the sacraments, and to take care 
 lest at any, time they should be guilty of the spiritual murder of 
 those with whom they associated, by giving bad example, or 
 prove themselves unworthy of their glorious heritage of faith. 
 
 We have no more to say now of Sister Mary Magdalen, save 
 that she lived long to do her work of reparation and penance,, 
 and that she did it well and faithfully. 
 
 It was to her dear child, Rosaline, she spoke. Rosaline, whom 
 she loved as tenderly as ever mother loved child, and with an 
 affection little less than maternal. 
 
 " Mr. O'Halloran is worthy of your choice, and I thank God 
 that you are to be united to one of your own faith and one of my 
 country." 
 
 "It is a great happiness, at least," replied gentle Rosaline* 
 " that every one is so pleased." 
 
 The dear child, for she was still little more, had given the 
 affections of her young heart to Thade. Her aristocratic family 
 had chaffed her not a little upon her choice. He was " Irish" 
 and a Roman Catholic, and no one knew anything about his 
 family, though, in truth, his descent might have been traced up 
 to a higher rank than that of any of his despisers, however hum- 
 ble the circumstances of his birth had been ; and the position in 
 Mr. Maxwell's bank, to which he had been raised by his honesty 
 and his talent, could not fail to command respect in a country 
 where business ability is held in special honor, and where intel- 
 lect takes rank as nature's patent of nobility. 
 
106 FROM KILLARNEY TO NEW YORK. 
 
 " But I have news for you, sister," said Rosaline,, when all 
 particulars of the wedding and the wedding tour had been fully 
 discussed. " You know we have not seen papa's old friend, Mr. 
 Hillman, since he was ordained deacon. We heard from him to- 
 day, and he sent me this," she said, producing an exquisitely- 
 bound missal, his wedding gift. " He is to be ordained priest 
 the Sunday after my wedding day." 
 
 Sister Mary Magdalen ejaculated a heart-felt " Thank God," 
 and well she might. 
 
 And all this came of Tim O'Halloran's choice. 
 
 Thade's conduct, on the occasion of his first introduction to his 
 patron, so soon to be his father-in-law, had made a very deep 
 impression on this gentleman. He said very little; in fact, he 
 affected to treat the whole affair with good-natured contempt; 
 but he reflected none the less deeply. He felt that there must be 
 something in a faith which could lead a boy to such practical 
 honesty from such high motives. He learned that the Irish, 
 even when uneducated, were a people of great natural ability; 
 that they were very far from deserving the contempt which the 
 ignorant too often bestowed on them. Several years' experience 
 of Thade — his steadiness in business, his admirable conduct in 
 prosperity, his quiet, patient religion — each and all made a deep 
 and blessed impression. 
 
 Then Mr. Hillman began to ask himself what he was living for, 
 and what was his life likely to be worth hereafter. He had in- 
 dependent means; he could choose, without let or hindrance, his 
 own future career; and having been received into the Holy Catho- 
 lic Church, he chose the humble, lowly, laborious, self-denying 
 life of a Catholic priest. 
 
 Little did the good farmer, whose death-bed scene forms the 
 opening chapter of our tale, ever imagine the many happy results 
 which would follow from his glorious fidelity to his faith. Little 
 did he imagine how God would reward, and how many would 
 live to bless 
 
 Tim. O'Halloran's Choice. 
 
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