ere not the owners, and I determined that they should
be so. I saw that the people were improvident, less from choice than
necessity, and I gave them banks. I saw land unproductive for want of
capital, and I established the principle of loans for drainage and other
improvements. I perceived that our soil and our climate favor certain
species of cultivation, and as certainly deny some others. I popularized
this knowledge."

"And you call this nothing! Why, sir, where's the statesman can point
to such a list of legislative acts? Peel himself has left no such legacy
behind him."

"Ah, my Lord, this is too flattering,--too flattering by half." And Dunn
sipped his wine and looked down. "By the way, my Lord," said he, after
a pause, "how has my recommendation in the person of Miss Kellett
succeeded?"

"A very remarkable young woman,--a singularly gifted person indeed,"
said the old Lord, pompously. "Some of her ideas are tinctured, it
is true, with that canting philanthropy we are just now infected
with,--that tendency to discover all the virtue in rags and all the
vice in purple; but, with this abatement to her utility, I must say she
possesses a very high order of mind. She comes of a good family, doesn't
she?"

"None better. The Kelletts of Kellett's Court were equal to any gentry
in this county."

"And left totally destitute?"

"A mere wreck of the property remains, and even that is so cumbered with
claims and so involved in law that I scarcely dare to say that they have
an acre they can call their own."

"Poor girl! A hard case,--a very hard case. We like her much, Dunn. My
daughter finds her very companionable; her services, in a business point
of view, are inestimable. All those reports you have seen are hers, all
those drawings made by her hand."

"I am aware, my Lord, how much zeal and intelligence she has displayed,"
said Dunn, who had no desire to let the conversation glide into the
great Glengariff scheme, "and I am also aware how gratefully she feels
the kindness she has met with under this roof."

"That is as it should be, Dunn, and I am rejoiced to hear it. It is in
no spirit of self-praise I say it, but in simple justice,--we do--my
daughter and myself, both of us--do endeavor to make her feel that her
position is less that of dependant than--than--companion."

"I should have expected nothing less from your Lordship nor Lady
Augusta," said Dunn, gravely.

"Yes, yes; you knew Augusta formerly; yo