have advised the scheme as suggested by
Mrs. Townsend. Her ideas as to Herbert's clerical studies would have
been higher than this. Trinity College, Dublin, was in her estimation
the only place left for good Church of England ecclesiastical
teaching. But as Herbert was obstinately bent on declining sacerdotal
life, there was no use in dispelling Mrs. Townsend's bright vision.

"It's all of no use," she said; "he is determined to go to the bar."

"The bar is very respectable," said Mrs. Townsend, kindly.

"And you mean to go with them, too?" said Mrs. Townsend, after
another pause. "You'll hardly be happy, I'm thinking, so far away
from your old home."

"It is sad to change at my time of life," said Aunt Letty,
plaintively. "I'm sixty-two now."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Townsend, who, however, knew her age to a day.

"Sixty-two if I live another week, and I have never yet had any home
but Castle Richmond. There I was born, and till the other day I
had every reason to trust that there I might die. But what does it
matter?"

"No, that's true of course; what does it matter where we are while we
linger in this vale of tears? But couldn't you get a little place for
yourself somewhere near here? There's Callaghan's cottage, with the
two-acre piece for a cow, and as nice a spot of a garden as there is
in the county Cork."

"I wouldn't separate myself from her now," said Aunt Letty, "for
all the cottages and all the gardens in Ireland. The Lord has been
pleased to throw us together, and together we will finish our
pilgrimage. Whither she goes, I will go, and where she lodges, I will
lodge; her people shall be my people, and her God my God." And then
Mrs. Townsend said nothing further of Callaghan's pretty cottage, or
of the two-acre piece.

But one reason for her going Aunt Letty did not give, even to her
friend Mrs. Townsend. Her income, that which belonged exclusively
to herself, was in no way affected by these sad Castle Richmond
revolutions. This was a comfortable,--we may say a generous provision
for an old maiden lady, amounting to some six hundred a year, settled
upon her for life, and this, if added to what could be saved and
scraped together, would enable them to live comfortably as far as
means were concerned, in that suburban villa to which they were
looking forward. But without Aunt Letty's income that suburban villa
must be but a poor home. Mr. Prendergast had calculated that some
fourteen thousand pounds