ad into stout loaves, for as Peter himself grew
wheat largely, she seized the opportunity presented by the death of the
only good baker in the neighborhood, of opening an extensive bakery.

It may be asked, how two illiterate persons, like Peter and Ellish,
could conduct business in which so much calculation was necessary,
without suffering severely by their liability to make mistakes. To this
we reply--first, that we should have liked to see any person attempting
to pass a bad note or a light guinea upon Ellish after nine or ten
years' experience; we should like to have seen a smug clerk taking his
pen from behind his ear, and after making his calculation, on inquiring
from Ellish if she had reckoned up the amount, compelled to ascertain
the error which she pointed out to him. The most remarkable point in
her whole character, was the rapid accuracy she displayed in mental
calculation, and her uncommon sagacity in detecting bad money.

There is, however, a still more satisfactory explanation of this
circumstance to be given. She had not neglected the education of her
children. The eldest was now an intelligent boy, and a smart accountant,
who, thanks to his master, had been taught to keep their books by Double
Entry. The second was little inferior to him as a clerk, though as a
general dealer he was far his superior. The eldest had been principally
behind the counter; whilst the younger, in accompanying his mother in
all her transactions and bargain-making, had in a great measure imbibed
her address and tact.

It is certainly a pleasing, and, we think, an interesting thing, to
contemplate the enterprise of an humble, but active, shrewd woman,
enabling her to rise, step by step, from the lowest state of poverty to
a small sense of independence; from this, by calling-fresh powers into
action, taking wider views, and following them up by increased efforts,
until her shebeen becomes a small country public-house; until her roll
of tobacco, and her few pounds of soap and starch, are lost in the
well-filled drawers of a grocery shop; and her gray Connemara stockings
transformed by the golden wand of industry into a country cloth
warehouse. To see Peter--from the time when he first harrowed part of
his farm with a thorn-bush, and ploughed it by joining his horse to that
of a neighbor--adding farm to farm, horse to horse, and cart to cart,
until we find him a wealthy and extensive agriculturist.

The progress of Peter and Ell