bliging to all the boys beneath his
standing in the school. These services he rendered with an air of such
kindness, and a grace so naturally winning, that the attachment of
his schoolfellows increased towards him from day to day. Thady was his
patron on all occasions: neither did the curate neglect him. The latter
was his banker, for the boy had very properly committed his purse to his
keeping. At the expiration of every quarter the schoolmaster received
the amount of his bill, which he never failed to send in, when due.

Jemmy had not, during his first year's residence in the south, forgotten
to request the kind curate's interference with the landlord, on behalf
of his father. To be the instrument of restoring his family to their
former comfortable holding under Colonel B------; would have afforded
him, without excepting the certainty of his own eventual success, the
highest gratification. Of this, however, there was no hope, and nothing
remained for him but assiduity in his studies, and patience under the
merciless scourge of his teacher. In addition to an engaging person and
agreeable manners, nature had gifted him with a high order of intellect,
and great powers of acquiring knowledge. The latter he applied to the
business before him with indefatigable industry. The school at; which
he settled was considered the first in Munster; and the master,
notwithstanding his known severity, stood high, and justly so, in
the opinion of the people, as an excellent classical and mathematical
scholar. Jemmy applied himself to the study of both, and at the
expiration of his second year had made such progress that he stood
without a rival in the school.

It is usual, as we have said, for the poor scholar to go night after
night, in rotation, with his schoolfellows; he is particularly welcome
in the houses of those farmers whose children are not so far advanced
as himself. It is expected that he should instruct them in the evenings,
and enable them, to prepare their lessons for the following day, a task
which he always performs with pleasure, because in teaching them he
is confirming his own mind in the knowledge which he has previously
acquired. Towards the end of the second year, however, he ceased
to circulate in this manner. Two or three of the most independent
parishioners, whose sons were only commencing their studies, agreed to
keep him week about; an arrangement highly convenient to him, as by that
means he was not so freq