have liked to watch Sir Godfrey Mallory also, but that was impossible.

The noble-looking old Italian advanced into the middle of the hall as the others had done, and he and Silcote looked steadily at one another without anything more than a formal bow. An interest, intense even now, and soon to grow more intense still, was arising in the hearts of Englishmen about Italian men and Italian things. And the Count knew it, and, coming once more into public after ten years, felt that he was showing this knot of English country gentlemen what an Italian and a conspirator could be like.

He was not among an audience very keen on the object which was nearest to his heart, perhaps; but the country gentlemen knew a gentleman when they saw one, and the ladies were tolerably good judges of perfect dignity and perfect grace; and, as the Americans say, were "excited along of him." That splendid-looking, grizzle-headed man, so tall, so grand, so upright, had experiences of which they could know nothing. He had been imprisoned, had escaped, had been hunted and proscribed; had been through every kind of misery and danger for his cause, and had come out with a pure and unstained name. It was impossible not to admire him. A buzz went round the hall, so loud as to give a pause to the proceedings, as the better informed told the less informed about him. "Frangipanni, the decemvir-escape from Spandau-cut his way out of Rome in command of Garibaldi's rearguard; the actions of Garibaldi, Saffi, Mazzini, Manin, and a dozen others, were rapidly placed to his credit, as rapidly as they could be remembered. The impulsive English found themselves in possession of the desire of their hearts, a hero, and he a Count of a great name, and buzzed so loudly, that Count Frangipanni could not be heard.

At this point Arthur the unaccountable, without moving from the chair in which he sat by his father, with a somewhat cynical smile on his very pale

head-master by crying out suddenly and sharply, "Vive Garibaldi!" A cheer went ringing round the hall directly. Tories as they mostly were, they had a cheer for the purity and valour of that

one man.

Frangipanni flushed up to the roots of his hair, but stood stately and immovable, only bowing once; when the noise had subsided they heard his voice,

clear, strong, and melodious, nearly without accent. He passed over the late little demonstration without notice.

My class has been small, sir, but I have been diligent with it. Continual diligence in politics begets diligence in everyday matters, and diligence in the master makes diligence in the pupil. My class of five would get prizes, all of them, elsewhere; but I must select. I name Reginald Silcote as gainer of the prize, and James Sugden as proximè.

The gratified Squire delivered the prize in this instance in silence; and Arthur, walking swiftly down to Count Frangipanni, talked eagerly with him for a few minutes, and then, having put a paper into his hand, walked back to his chair, leaving Frangipanni still standing in the centre of the hall. They all wondered why until he spoke.

He

"Our good head-master," he said, in his graceful, dignified way, "has put a labour of love upon me, which I am proud to discharge, however unfit. says it is as a parting compliment to me, but what compliment have I earned in se short a time? It cannot be that he trusts this honour to a poor exile, because there are some so ignoble and so wretched here as to doubt the nobility, the purity, and the excellency of his character. That he is unpopular? No! That is impossible. I will not believe that. It is not in England that perfect justice and kindness should not be appreciated. It is because I go from England into the dark south cloud, to death or prison, that he gives me this pleasant commission; that is all. I will to my duty, then.

"There has been a prize established

James thought he was wandering. "I start for Italy to-morrow, Ben," he said. "I have come-for I must say itto say good-bye. You have been as kind and as faithful a friend as ever I had; and I thank you so very, very much. But I go to Italy to-morrow.”

"To Italy to-morrow? I am bound on a longer journey, but I shall be at my journey's end before you for all that. Then good-bye. I can't make your face out clear. But be good to your mother as you were to me.

Your mother is a woman in ten thousand. There is nothing you shouldn't do for your mother. Stick to her through thick and thin. A man never has a mother but once, and seldom such a mother as yours."

James made his farewell to the old fellow (who soon died), and went his way, believing him to be rambling in his mind. The half-year's prizes were to be given away that afternoon at two o'clock, and the County was coming. He thought for the time little about old Berry's wandering.

Sir Godfrey Mallory in a great barouche, all alone, dressed in priceless sables, with the fur inside, and shivering, was the first arrival. Silcote in a bran new travelling carriage (Anne's), and four horses with scarlet postilions, was so close after him that Silcote had time to dismount, and offer his arm to Sir Godfrey Mallory as he got down. Sir Godfrey bowed and smiled at this attention, not in the least recognising his old enemy; and Miss Raylock, who had arrived in a fly from the nearest railway station, and had been forced to get out of it, having recognised the two carriages, for the purpose of seeing the meeting of the two old enemies and studying human nature, was stricken motionless in the snow.

And the rest of the County, who resided close by, were there. The frost had stopped the hunting, and there was nothing to do: and, as the foolish old song says, "Anything is fun in the country," and so there they were to see the prizes given away; manners pre

other's faces; sitting about on the benches, telling each other where they had dined every day for the last week, and finding out from one another where they were going to dine the next; good, kindly, intelligent, honest folks as ever lived, but more idiotic in their worship of mere habit than the Indians who are swung on hooks at a fair, leaving alone the fact that the Indian process has the advantage of cheapness, which the English form of prescriptive martyrdom has not. I suppose they both as Mr. Mad Dick in "David Copperfield" says, to the great indignation of Aunt Betsy-" do it for pleasure."

However, here were the county folks, trying to gain a feeble amusement by seeing the prizes given away at St. Mary's, and they formed an important and imposing audience. Silcote gave away the prizes. Each master in turn gave aloud the names of the boys under his charge, and they were called up to receive them. Silcote did his work very well indeed, giving a few kindly sensible words, accompanied in every instance by a clever point or epigram, to each of the boys as he came up. He had been famous for neat and concentrated, and also sometimes for sharp language in old times, and he was pleased to find that the old trick was not lost with so much else, and came out. The County were charmed with the vivacity and cleverness of this mysterious man, who had held them all at bay so long.

The classical boys came first of all, and when they were done the commercial boys. Then the winners of French prizes, named by M. Leroy; then the German, named by M. Meyer; and then the Italian.

Silcote, rising, once more said, "We have now only to ask Signor Frangipanni to name the winners of prizes in his class, and then we will proceed to the prize of the day, and conclude the proceedings." He did not sit down again; he looked right and left steadily, for he could not make out where Signor Frangipanni was sitting, and he had a

have liked to watch Sir Godfrey Mallory also, but that was impossible.

The noble-looking old Italian advanced into the middle of the hall as the others had done, and he and Silcote looked steadily at one another without anything more than a formal bow. An interest, intense even now, and soon to grow more intense still, was arising in the hearts of Englishmen about Italian men and Italian things. And the Count knew it, and, coming once more into public after ten years, felt that he was showing this knot of English country gentlemen what an Italian and a conspirator could be like.

He was not among an audience very keen on the object which was nearest to his heart, perhaps; but the country gentlemen knew a gentleman when they saw one, and the ladies were tolerably good judges of perfect dignity and perfect grace; and, as the Americans say, were "excited along of him." That splendid-looking, grizzle-headed man, so tall, so grand, so upright, had experiences of which they could know nothing. He had been imprisoned, had escaped, had been hunted and proscribed; had been through every kind of misery and danger for his cause, and had come out with a pure and unstained name. It was impossible not to admire him. A buzz went round the hall, so loud as to give a pause to the proceedings, as the better informed told the less informed about him. "Frangipanni, the decemvir-escape from Spandau-cut his way out of Rome in command of Garibaldi's rearguard; "the actions of Garibaldi, Saffi, Mazzini, Manin, and a dozen others, were rapidly placed to his credit, as rapidly as they could be remembered. The impulsive English found themselves in possession of the desire of their hearts, a hero, and he a Count of a great name, and buzzed so loudly, that Count Frangipanni could not be heard.

At this point Arthur the unaccountable, without moving from the chair in which he sat by his father, with a somewhat cynical smile on his very pale

head-master by crying out suddenly and sharply, "Vive Garibaldi!" A cheer went ringing round the hall directly. Tories as they mostly were, they had a cheer for the purity and valour of that

one man.

Frangipanni flushed up to the roots of his hair, but stood stately and immovable, only bowing once; when the noise had subsided they heard his voice, -clear, strong, and melodious, nearly without accent. He passed over the late little demonstration without notice.

"My class has been small, sir, but I have been diligent with it. Continual diligence in politics begets diligence in everyday matters, and diligence in the master makes diligence in the pupil. My class of five would get prizes, all of them, elsewhere; but I must select. I name Reginald Silcote as gainer of the prize, and James Sugden as proximè.'

The gratified Squire delivered the prize in this instance in silence; and Arthur, walking swiftly down to Count Frangipanni, talked eagerly with him for a few minutes, and then, having put a paper into his hand, walked back to his chair, leaving Frangipanni still standing in the centre of the hall. They all wondered why until he spoke.

"Our good head-master," he said, in his graceful, dignified way, "has put a labour of love upon me, which I am proud to discharge, however unfit. He says it is as a parting compliment to me, but what compliment have I earned in so short a time? It cannot be that he trusts this honour to a poor exile, because there are some so ignoble and so wretched here as to doubt the nobility, the purity, and the excellency of his character. That he is unpopular? No! That is impossible. I will not believe that. It is not in England that perfect justice and kindness should not be appreciated. It is because I go from England into the dark south cloud, to death or prison, that he gives me this pleasant commission; that is all. I will to my duty, then.

"There has been a prize established

grounds. The whole school are to elect by ballot the boy who has made himself most répandu, most popular, during the year, and to send his name to the headmaster for approval. They have done so, and the head-master has enthusiastically approved of their choice. The name of the boy they have chosen is my friend James Sugden."

Three heads went down : the Squire's for one instant; then James's, who had been a little idle, and had got beyond the region of prizes, and was utterly unprepared for this; and, lastly, his mother's, sitting calmly in a distant corner of the hall unobserved, and her head remained down longest.

James was brought forward to receive his prize, and, the proceedings being as good as over, the boys broke loose and swarmed around him and from his old and well-tried comrades, down to the very latest comer, there were none who had not kind actions and kind words of his to thank him for now and to remember hereafter. It was a glorious triumph,such a triumph as never comes twice in a lifetime except to statesmen with long dulled enthusiasm, and more or less carefully-guarded passions. They may get They may get hysterically glad in great successes, but

they can't be boys again. Joy is the inseparable accident of youth. If one was to be joyful now, I suspect it would make one very ill.

They all crowded out of the hall together towards the cloisters; the county folks, the masters, the boysevery one. James was congratulated on all sides, and having been utterly tête montée all day was now considerably upset. In the midst of the crowd he found himself alongside of the matron, his mother, to him only his friend Mrs. Morgan, who was calmly steering her way through them all, with her grey head bare, and her grey shawl drooping from her splendid throat over her handsome shoulders; he clutched her arm, and, looking innocently into her quiet eyes, said, passionately

"I wish my mother could see me now! I have been thinking so much of her lately. Oh, I wish to God she could see me now! I shall never be so worthy of her again."

And she bent forward in the midst of them all, and kissed him three times on his forehead, and said, "Wait! wait! I cannot tell you why, but wait!" To be continued.

STUDENTS of Irish history know how from time to time in its troubled course, after some overwhelming disaster, there has come a pause in misfortune, a tranquil interval, when statesmen, beholding the capabilities of the country and its people, and mistaking the signs of exhaustion for those of a new life of peace and prosperity, congratulated themselves upon the regeneration of Ireland in their own days. "In the first nine years of King James," wrote Sir John Davis, after

beth, "there hath been more done in "the reformation of the kingdom than "in the 440 years since the Conquest." A still profounder statesman, Bacon, four years afterwards congratulated a Chief Justice of Ireland on his appointment at a time when "that kingdom, "which within these twenty years wise 66 men were wont to doubt whether they should wish it to be a pool, is "like now to become a garden, and 66 younger sister to Great Britain." A generation had not passed before these

lion, suppressed in its turn in such a manner that Sir William Petty in 1672 expressed his conviction that the Irish never would rebel again, the more so as they had never before such prosperity as then.1 Political wisdom and sagacity are both supposed to have made great progress since the reign of Charles II.; yet such has been the falsification of repeated hopes of Ireland's reformation that there are still to be found men who repeat the very wishes (doubtless ignorant of their antiquity) which Sir William Petty 200 years ago sternly rebuked, and of which nearly 300 years ago the poet Spenser exposed the folly. The repetition of such sentiments in itself might merely prove that political and moral progress has been unequal in England as in Ireland, and be worth notice only on the part of those historic minds who find an interest in every living vestige of ancestral barbarism in either island. But it is connected not remotely with inquiries of more practical interest and importance, to which conflicting answers are returned; inquiries such as, What is really the present state of Ireland? Has it made any real progress since its last great disaster? Is the land, the people, or the law, the cause of its long backwardness and misery? Can legislation do anything for its benefit?

The chief difficulty in answering the two first of these inquiries arises from the very different state of different

1 Political Anatomy of Ireland, chaps. iv. and xii.

2

"Some furious spirits have wished that the Irish would rebel again that they might be put to the sword. But I declare that notion to be not only impious and inhuman, but withal frivolous, and pernicious even to those who have rashly wished for those occasions."-Sir W. Petty, "Political Anatomy," chap. iv. "So have I heard it often wished that all that land were a seapool, which kind of speech is rather the manner of desperate men than of wise counsellors; for were it not the part of a desperate physician to wish his patient dead rather than to apply the best endeavour of his skill for his recovery?"-" A New View of the State of Ireland," by Edmund Spenser, 1596. I beg the attention of

parts of the island. Different counties and towns-adjoining estates, and even adjoining farms and houses-are very differently circumstanced, and would return a very different report; nor is it too much to assert that the man does not exist who could give a complete and true account of Ireland's present condition. Even the very same results may be produced in different places by opposite causes, and are of different import and omen accordingly. Of this a striking instance offers at once in the rate of wages; an instance of great importance in itself, because it touches the root of the whole Irish question, as for brevity it is sometimes called. Great stress is laid by some on the advance in Irish wages as a proof of a proportionate increase in general prosperity, and of the benefit of emigration. As a matter of fact the rise in wages is much less than those who take this view suppose; and, in truth, the bulk of the employers of labour below the landed proprietors are in no condition to pay such a price for it. The demand at such a price as has been stated could in most Irish counties be that of one small class alone; and such wages would therefore imply a much greater emigration of labourers and disappearance of farmers than has as yet taken place. But, moreover, those who allege a rise in wages as a conclusive proof of a proportionate increase in general prosperity, overlook the distinction between a home demand for labour and a foreign one, to which alone they refer it. If ten thousand labourers only were left in the island, they might earn perhaps more than a pound a day from the upper ten thousand; but would such payment be a proof of Ireland's great prosperity? Would it not rather prove that Ireland had lost one of the three great instruments of production, labour; and that the industry of Ireland had gone to develop American instead of Irish natural resources? The following table shows the rates of wages earned by agricultural labour throughout the