o their
mother, and fresh impulses to her industry. Her ignorance, and that of
her husband, of any kind of education, she had often, in the course
of their business, bitter cause to regret. She now resolved that their
children should be well instructed; and no time was lost in sending them
to school, the moment she thought them capable of imbibing the simplest
elements of instruction.

"It's hard to say," she observed to her husband, "how soon they may be
useful to us. Who knows, Pether, but we may have a full shop yit,
an' they may be able to make up bits of accounts for us, poor things?
Throth, I'd be happy if I wanst seen it."

"Faix, Ellish," replied Peter, "if we can get an as we're doin', it is
hard to say. For my own part, if I had got the larnin' in time, I might
be a bright boy to-day, no doubt of it--could spake up to the best
o' thim. I never wint to school but wanst, an' I remimber I threw the
masther into a kiln-pot, an' broke the poor craythur's arm; an' from
that day to this, I never could be brought a single day to school."

Peter and Ellish now began to be pointed out as a couple worthy of
imitation by those who knew that perseverance and industry never fail of
securing their own reward. Others, however,--that is to say, the lazy,
the profligate, and the ignorant,--had a ready solution of the secret of
their success.

"Oh, my dear, she's a lucky woman, an' anything she puts her hand to
prospers. Sure sho was born wid a _lucky caul_* an her head; an', be
sure, ahagur, the world will flow in upon thim. There's many a neighbor
about thim works their fingers to the stumps, an' yit you see they can't
get an: for Ellish, if she'd throw the sweepins of her hearth to the
wind, it 'ud come back to her in money. She was born to it, an' nothin'
can keep her from her luck!"**

* The caul is a, thin membrane, about the consistence
of very fine silk, which sometimes covers the head on a
new-born infant like a cap. It is always the omen of
great good fortune to the infant and parents; and in
Ireland, when any one has unexpectedly fallen into the
receipt of property, or any other temporal good, it is
customary to say, "such a person was born with a 'lucky
caul' on his head."

Why these are considered lucky, it would be a very
difficult matter to ascertain. Several instances of
good fortune, happening to such as were born with them,
might, by their coi