"Its capital descriptions of India, as well as the character and fortunes of its heroine."-Standard. "It teaches a good lesson, and teaches it well."-Spectator. "Very decidedly above the average of style in novels; the reader finds himself borne pleasantly along by the rapidity and vivacity of the narrative."-Literary World. "Whatever may be thought of the purity of the Irish Parliament during the Frief period in which it exercised an independent authority, there are certainly ew things more absurd han the charges of bigotry that are frequently directed against it. "It is worthy, too, of notice that the liberalism of the Irish Parliament was always in direct proportion to its political independence. "The purely national and secular spirit the Irish Parliament had fostered perished with its organ. Patriotism was replaced by sectarianism. "It is obvious, in the first place, that one important effect of a purely secular political feeling will be to weaken the intensity of sectarianism. Before its existence sectarianism was the measure by which all things and persons were contemplated. But when a purely political spirit is engendered, a new enthusiasm is introduced into the mind, which first divides the affections and at last replaces the passion that had formerly been supreme."-Lecky, "History of Rationalism." HOGAN, M.P. CHAPTER I. "Studies serve for delight, for ornament and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business."-Bacon's Essays, Civil and Moral. THE schoolroom of St. Swithin's Convent presented a scene of unwonted bustle and confusion one fine, hot morning in the middle of July. Breaking-up day, or, as the Mother Superior preferred to call it, "the closing day of the scholastic year," was an event of no small importance and solemnity. The whole community, from the Superior and the members of the Council down to the fifteen-yearold novice, were intensely impressed with the sense of personal and individual responsibility. Each had her own share of the burden. That the invited guests were all the right ones— VOL. I. 1 |