among the 'things that were,' as are the Irish kings. Some
have shrewdly thought that it was the only real Irish king. Well, then,
it is owing to this cousin's loyalty to the usurper, or rather
pretender, that I am the family chronicler. He was wonderfully
ingenious; could from the slightest hint guess at the whole story; he
was equal to those naturalists who from one bone can make out the
animal. With the remains of an old family tradition for his clue, he
traced the origin of the escutcheon. It was on this wise. One of the
Irish kings, traveling incog., stopped at the castle of an O'Molly, who,
though he knew not the rank of his guest, entertained him with the
utmost hospitality. Freely the goblet circulated, and as they two only
drank from it, it was soon broken. The king, next morning, revealed his
rank to his host, and dubbed him _Knight of the Goblet_; hence the
goblet on the shield, an emblem of hospitality. And never has there been
a stain on the escutcheon of the O'Mollys.

I said they were an orthodox race. Perhaps they were too bigoted in
their adherence to the old customs and the old faith. But there is too
much latitudinarianism in this nineteenth century. Too many think it
matters but little what a man's belief is, if he is only sincere in it;
as if the consequences of any thing could be averted by not believing in
it. The hands of your clock may be so turned around that they will point
to the wrong figures; does that change the time? Or, what amounts to the
same thing, it may be so ill-regulated, the machinery may be so out of
gear, that you are deceived. But morning, noon, and night do not
regulate their face by your clock. There is a dial that unerringly marks
'the stately stoppings' of the sun of suns--let us regulate our belief
by it.

Truth is not like the clouds that, it is said, take the form of the
country over which they pass. It does not change to suit your condition
or mind, and we can not change it, neither can we dilute it. What is
not truth is falsehood, and this, as the acid dissolved the pearl which
Cleopatra dropped into it, will dissolve truth and convert it into its
own nature.

How little we prize truth, even if we do not thus attempt to dissolve
it. It lies in our heart unheeded. We are almost as unconscious of it as
the oyster is of the pearl within his shell.

A friend of mine, having a daughter 'to finish,' looked over
advertisement after advertisement, till finally her eye li