ambitious aspirings
would seem the history of their humble hopes! how insignificant and how
narrow might appear the little plans and plots they laid for that new
road in life, in which they were now to travel! The great man might
scoff at these, the moralist might frown at their worldliness; but there
is nothing sordid or mean in the spirit of manly independence; and they
who know the Irish people, will never accuse them of receiving worldly
benefits with any forgetfulness of their true and only source. And now
to our story.

The little cabin upon the mountain was speedily added to, and fashioned
into a comfortable-looking farmhouse of the humbler class. Both father
and son would willingly have left it as it was; but the landlord's
wish had laid a command upon them, and they felt it would have been a
misapplication of his bounty, had they not done as he had desired. So
closely, indeed, did they adhere to his injunctions, that a little room
was added specially for his use and accommodation, whenever he came
on that promised excursion he hinted at. Every detail of this little
chamber interested them deeply; and many a night, as they sat over their
fire, did they eagerly discuss the habits and tastes of the "quality,"
anxious to be wanting in nothing which should make it suitable for one
like him.

Sufficient money remained above all this expenditure to purchase some
sheep, and even a cow; and already their changed fortunes had excited
the interest and curiosity of the little world in which they lived.

There is one blessing, and it is a great one, attendant on humble life.
The amelioration of condition requires not that a man should leave the
friends and companions he has so long sojourned with, and seek, in a
new order, others to supply their place; the spirit of class does
not descend to him, or rather, he is far above it; his altered state
suggests comparatively few enjoyments or comforts in which his old
associates cannot participate; and thus the Connors' cabin was each
Sunday thronged by the country people, who came to see with their own
eyes, and hear with their own ears, the wonderful good fortune that
befell them.

Had the landlord been an angel of light, the blessings invoked upon
him could not have been more frequent or fervent; each measured the
munificence of the act by his own short standard of worldly possessions;
and individual murmurings for real or fancied wrongs were hushed in the
presence of one s