foreshadowings of future force were not alone among the elements
within the little heart which lay neglected by those he loved and
whose lives he lighted, though they knew it not. In due course he was
despatched to another school, thirty miles away. He lived with his
uncle, Mr. John Goldsmith, a landed gentleman, and attended the school
at Elphin; and at eleven years of age was sent to another and a more
reputed Academy nearer home, at Athlone. Two years here and four at
Edgeworthstown completed his schooling at the age of seventeen.

Of the Vicar of Wakefield, and thence of the father of little Oliver,
it was said that all his adventures were by his own fireside, and all
his travels from one room to another. He was in all likelihood a
delicate man, and certainly deeply religious, with a high sense of
honour and common moral obligation. The _Vicar of Wakefield_, his best
portrait, stands an honourable and an imperishable filial tribute, the
fairest ever paid by son to sire.

One day, when this young Master Goldsmith was in his teens, he left
home for Edgeworthstown, riding a good horse, borrowed from a friend,
and in high glee, if money braces the manly heart. With a golden
guinea in his purse, he was as proud as wealth untold can make a
buoyant spirit, in the days when life is very bright and happiness is
everywhere. He loitered on the journey. The horse nigh slept, whilst
the rider mooned on in meditative peace, and a lad's romantic building
up of airy castellations. Instead of achieving his actual destination
by nightfall, he was still miles away from the appointed place.
Nothing daunted, with a proud and mighty air, he paused in the streets
of Ardagh to ask a wayfarer where he could find the best house of
entertainment. This question, it happened, was addressed to the
greatest wag in the vicinity.

The wit, a jocose fencing-master, Mr. Cornelius Kelly, now fenced with
words, and in all his life never did defter work. He pointed to the
house of old Squire Featherston, rightly averring no better
entertainment or hospitality could be found anywhere in all the world
than in that generous and hearty home. Thus mistaking this private
house and family mansion for an inn, the youth approached the place,
and the wag went on his way. Oliver gave the bell a good ring, told
the man to take his horse, and sauntered into the commodious parlour
of the Squire as if it had been the public room in some well-supplied
hotel. The Sq