f I could imitate many of their traits of forbearance and
long-suffering patience by following their costume, I promise you I'd
don the scarlet."

"Ay, Fred," said Sir Marmaduke, with a sententious gravity, "they don't
know these Irish at all at our side of the water. They mistake
them totally. They only want teaching, a little example--a little
encouragement--that's all: and they are as docile and tractable as
possible. I'll show you to-morrow what improvements a few months have
effected. I'll bring you over a part of the estate, where there was not
a hovel fit for a dog, and you shall see what comfortable dwellings they
have. We hear nothing in England but the old songs about popery, and
superstition, and all that. Why, my dear Fred, these people don't care a
straw for the priest--they'd be any thing I asked them."

"Devilish high principled that, any way," said Fred, drily.

"I didn't exactly mean that; at least in the sense you take it. I was
about to say, that such is their confidence, such their gratitude to the
landlord, that--tha----"

"That in short they'd become Turks, for an abatement in the rent. Well,
Sybella dear, is this one of the traits you are so anxious to imitate?"

"Why will you misunderstand, Fred?" said Sybella imploringly. "Cannot
you see that gratitude may lead an uninstructed people far beyond the
limits of reason--my father is so good to them."

"With all my heart--I have not the slightest objection in life; indeed
I'm not sure, if all the estate be like what I passed through this
afternoon, if _my_ generosity wouldn't go farther, and, instead of
reducing the rent, make them an honest present of the fee simple."

"Foolish boy!" said Sir Marmaduke, half angrily. "There are forty
thousand acres of reclaimable land----"

"Which might bear crops, Anno Domini 3095."

"There are mines of inexhaustible wealth."

"And would cost such to work them, sir, no doubt. Come, come,
father--Hemsworth has passed a life among these people. He knows more
than we do, or ever shall.

"I tell you, sir," said Sir Marmaduke, nettled by such a sarcasm on his
powers of observation, "I know them perfectly--I can read them like a
book. They are a guileless, simple-minded, confiding people--you may
see every thought they have in their countenances. They only need the
commonest offices of kindness to attach them; and, as for political or
religious leanings, I have questioned them pretty closely, and, without
a