to benefit destitute orphans or vagrants by sending them to homes in the far West, where agents are stationed, and where homes are ready to receive the children. When a sufficient number of the little ones is collected, clothed, and instructed, they make the Western journey under the care of an agent, who delivers them in the appointed places. Correspondence is constantly kept up between these children and the officers at this end of the line. The benefit is mutual. They are saved from vice and vagrancy here, and they are welcome where work is abundant and workers few.

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But New England does not want to send away her laborers. On the contrary, she needs them all. There is room enough for all, and more than work enough. In fact, labor is a great deal too well paid, that is to say, unskilled labor. Following the law of supply and demand, the ignorant housemaid in a country town, who scarcely knows the name of the commonest utensil, and who, in justice, does not earn the bread she eats, requires, and obtains, the same wages that an experienced and competent person in the city receives. The labor must be obtained somehow, at any cost. But if there were ten times as many laborers in the country, work would be ten times better done than it is now. So many of the young men of New England have emigrated to the West, that there is abundant room for the raw material from Ireland, if only the immigrants are wisely directed and apportioned.

As to the objection, that a very large number of officers is necessary to carry on a plan of this kind, it seems hardly worth considering. Perhaps the same men who so skilfully and humanely manage the houses of correction and ref ormation already mentioned might be employed in a work to supersede either. The foreign population thus brought more directly under purely American influences would be greatly benefited. The Yankee leaven leavens great lumps, and the natural position of employer

gives an advantage in requiring and encouraging improvement in habits and character. In Syracuse, New York, some years ago, the writer was shown a row of pretty, white cottages, built alike, and with trim gardens to each. It was a profound surprise to learn that these dwellings were a successful experiment on the part of a large railroad proprietor, and that the houses were all occupied by Irish laborers. They were rent free the first year, on condition that they should be kept in perfect order. The next year they were rented low, but always on the same condition; and for some time the occupants had now paid full rent, and had great pride in keeping their little places with order and neatness. This experiment would seem to prove that progress is possible, under favorable circumstances, even among the reckless and improvident Hibernians.

The late Governor Andrew, when he sent one hundred respectable, well-educated young women to the extreme West, where there were no such luxuries, and provided them with a suitable escort thither, and an assurance of employment at their journey's end, did the right thing in the right way, which might well be imitated on a large scale with the redundant poor who are unemployed in our cities. For these young women were educated to an employment which was already crowded. They were removed, at the expense of the State, to a place where they were needed, to a part of the country where their education would be useful to themselves and those about them. Who shall say what will be the difference between a community formed under such New England influences, and one grown up with casual and possibly barbarous influences? Such power has character that it is believed many hundreds of thousands of impressible Irish men and women might be made into excellent Yankees, if they were so dispersed as to receive fairly, and without prejudice, the unconscious education that would come from daily contact with our own people. There might be a mutual in

fluence with advantage to both; but the sterner characteristics would be the stronger ones, at least in this bracing climate, and we should see, in the next generation, the vivacious Irish temperament assimilated in outward gravity to that of the Yankee, while he, in his turn, might have possibly borrowed something of the other's hilarity. The unconscious missionaries acting daily at the heads of households are illustrations of this. An Irish girl who has been in an American family for a year will have so much changed her accent, that, when the rest of her family follow her from Ireland, as they generally do by that time, they scarcely recognize her speech.

If these people were generally dispersed through the country, and those gregarious habits broken up which are both the cause and effect of poverty, they would soon be visibly affected and changed by the direct social influences that would be brought to bear on them. For every reason, political and religious, it is desirable that the victims of poverty, ignorance, and vice now crowded together in cities, and totally incapable of making any feasible arrangements for their own advantage, should' receive the systematic aid of the State in seeking a market for their labor, and the opportunity permanently to better their lot.

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property and a handsome house; she had lost her husband, indeed, within a year after marriage; but, as the late George De Grey had been of a sullen and brooding humor, — to that degree, indeed, as to incur the suspicion of insanity, her loss, leaving her well provided for, might in strictness have been accounted a gain. Her son, moreover, had never given her a moment's trouble; he had grown up a charming young man, handsome, witty, and wise; he was a model of filial devotion. The lady's health was good; she had half a dozen perfect servants; she had the perpetual company of the incomparable Mr. Herbert; she was as fine a figure of an elderly woman as any in town; she might, therefore, very well have been happy and have looked so. On the other hand, a dozen sensible women had been known to declare with emphasis, that not for all her treasures and her felicity would they have consented to be Mrs. De Grey. These ladies were, of course, unable to give a logical reason for so strong an aversion. But it is certain that there hung over Mrs. De Grey's history and circumstances a film, as it were, a shadow of mystery, which struck a chill upon imaginations which might easily have been kindled into envy of her good fortune. "She lives in the dark," some one had said of her. Close observers did her the honor to believe that there was a secret in her life, but of a wholly undefined character. Was she the victim of some lurking sorrow, or the mistress of some clandestine joy? These imputations, we may easily believe, are partially explained by the circumstance that she was a Catholic, and kept a priest in her house. The unexplained portion might very well, moreover, have been discredited by Mrs. De Grey's perfectly candid and complacent demeanor. It was certainly hard to conceive, in talking with her, to what part of her person one might pin a mystery, - whether on her clear, round eyes or her handsome, benevolent lips. Let us say, then, in defiance of the voice of society, that she was no tragedy queen.

She was a fine woman, a dull woman, a perfect gentlewoman. She had taken life, as she liked a cup of tea, — weak, with an exquisite aroma and plenty of cream and sugar. She had never lost her temper, for the excellent reason that she had none to lose. She was troubled with no fears, no doubts, no scruples, and blessed with no sacred certainties. She was fond of her son, of the church, of her garden, and of her toilet. She had the very best taste; but, morally, one may say that she had had no history.

Mrs. De Grey had always lived in seclusion; for a couple of years previous to the time of which I speak she had lived in solitude. Her son, on reaching his twenty-third year, had gone to Europe for a long visit, in pursuance of a plan discussed at intervals between his mother and Mr. Herbert during the whole course of his boyhood. They had made no attempt to forecast his future career, or to prepare him for a profession. Strictly, indeed, he was at liberty, like his late father, to dispense with a profession. Not that it was to be wished that he should take his father's life as an example. It was understood by the world at large, and, of course, by Mrs. De Grey and her companion in particular, that this gentleman's existence had been blighted, at an early period, by an unhappy loveaffair; and it was notorious that, in consequence, he had spent the few years of his maturity in gloomy idleness and dissipation. Mrs. De Grey, whose own father was an Englishman, reduced to poverty, but with claims to high gentility, professed herself unable to understand why Paul should not live decently on his means. Mr. Herbert declared that in America, in any walk of life, idleness was indecent; and that he hoped the young man would-nominally at least - select a career. It was agreed on both sides, however, that there was no need for haste; and that it was proper, in the first place, he should see the world. The world, to Mrs. De Grey, was little more than a name; but to Mr. Herbert, priest as he was, it was

a vivid reality. Yet he felt that the generous and intelligent youth upon whose education he had lavished all the treasures of his tenderness and sagacity, was not unfitted, either by nature or culture, to measure his sinews against its trials and temptations; and that he should love him the better for coming home at twenty-five an accomplished gentleman and a good Catholic, sobered and seasoned by experience, sceptical in small matters, confident in great, and richly replete with good stories. When he came of age, Paul received his walking-ticket, as they say, in the shape of a letter of credit for a handsome sum on certain London bankers. But the young man pocketed the letter, and remained at home, poring over books, lounging in the garden, and scribbling heroic verses. At the end of a year, he plucked up a little ambition, and took a turn through the country, travelling much of the way on horseback. He came back an ardent American, and felt that he might go abroad without danger. During his absence in Europe he had written home innumerable long letters,-compositions so elaborate (in the taste of that day, recent as it is) and so delightful, that, between their pride in his epistolary talent, and their longing to see his face, his mother and his ex-tutor would have been at a loss to determine whether he gave them more satisfaction at home or abroad.

With his departure the household was plunged in unbroken repose. Mrs. De Grey neither went out nor entertained company. An occasional morning call was the only claim made upon her hospitality. Mr. Herbert, who was a great scholar, spent all his hours in study; and his patroness sat for the most part alone, arrayed with a perfection of neatness which there was no one to admire (unless it be her waitingmaid, to whom it remained a constant matter of awe), reading a pious book or knitting under-garments for the orthodox needy. At times, indeed, she wrote long letters to her son, the contents of which Mr. Herbert found

it hard to divine. This was accounted a dull life forty years ago; now, doubtless, it would be considered no life at all. It is no matter of wonder, therefore, that finally, one April morning, in her sixty-seventh year, as I have said, Mrs. De Grey suddenly began to suspect that she was lonely. Another long year, at least, was to come and go before Paul's return. After meditating for a while in silence, Mrs. De Grey resolved to take counsel with Father Herbert.

This gentleman, an Englishman by birth, had been an intimate friend of George De Grey, who had made his acquaintance during a visit to Europe, before his marriage. Mr. Herbert was a younger son of an excellent Catholic family, and was at that time beginning, on small resources, the practice of the law. De Grey met him in London, and the two conceived a strong mutual sympathy. Herbert had neither taste for his profession nor apparent ambition of any sort. He was, moreover, in weak health; and his friend found no difficulty in persuading him to accept the place of travelling companion through France and Italy. De Grey carried a very long purse, and was a most liberal friend and patron; and the two young men accomplished their progress as far as Venice in the best spirits and on the best terms. But in Venice, for reasons best known to themselves, they bitterly and irretrievably quarrelled. Some persons said it was over a cardtable, and some said it was about a woman. At all events, in consequence, De Grey returned to America, and Herbert repaired to Rome. He obtained admission into a monastery, studied theology, and finally was invested with priestly orders. In America, in his thirty-third year, De Grey married the lady whom I have described. A few weeks after his marriage he wrote to Herbert, expressing a vehement desire to be reconciled. Herbert felt that the letter was that of a most unhappy man; he had already forgiven him; he pitied him, and after a short delay succeeded in obtaining