much the
junior, being at that time under thirty. He had now visited Ireland
with the sole object of working among the poor, and distributing
according to his own judgment certain funds which had been collected
for this purpose in England.

And indeed there did often exist in England at this time a
misapprehension as to Irish wants, which led to some misuses of the
funds which England so liberally sent. It came at that time to be
the duty of a certain public officer to inquire into a charge made
against a seemingly respectable man in the far west of Ireland,
purporting that he had appropriated to his own use a sum of twelve
pounds sent to him for the relief of the poor of his parish. It had
been sent by three English maiden ladies to the relieving officer
of the parish of Kilcoutymorrow, and had come to his hands, he then
filling that position. He, so the charge said,--and unfortunately
said so with only too much truth,--had put the twelve pounds into
his own private pocket. The officer's duty in the matter took him to
the chairman of the Relief Committee, a stanch old Roman Catholic
gentleman nearly eighty years of age, with a hoary head and white
beard, and a Milesian name that had come down to him through
centuries of Catholic ancestors;--a man urbane in his manner, of the
old school, an Irishman such as one does meet still here and there
through the country, but now not often--one who above all things was
true to the old religion.

Then the officer of the government told his story to the old Irish
gentleman--with many words, for there were all manner of small
collateral proofs, to all of which the old Irish gentleman listened
with a courtesy and patience which were admirable. And when the
officer of the government had done, the old Irish gentleman thus
replied:--

"My neighbour Hobbs,"--such was the culprit's name--"has undoubtedly
done this thing. He has certainly spent upon his own uses the
generous offering made to our poor parish by those noble-minded
ladies, the three Miss Walkers. But he has acted with perfect honesty
in the matter."

"What!" said the government officer, "robbing the poor, and at such a
time as this!"

"No robbery at all, dear sir," said the good old Irish gentleman,
with the blandest of all possible smiles; "the excellent Miss
Walkers sent their money for the Protestant poor of the parish of
Kilcoutymorrow, and Mr. Hobbs is the only Protestant within it." And
from the twinkle in the