"Where are you going, my lads?" quoth I. "Plase your honour, to get ready the bonfires for Maaster Frederick agin the evening." "I am a stranger in these parts, and should like to know what all this work is for," said I, turning to a fine, active youth, who led the van. "Why, indeed, sir, I don't _rightly_ know; but, be what I can larn, Maasther Fred. is to be King o' the College from this time out." "Och! you fool, Jack!" cried another, "that isn't it at all. I heard my father say just now that he was (that's Maasther Fred.) _cheered_ round the city like a Parliamint man, and that he flogged all the scholars in Ireland." "Well _you're_ out too, Flurry," vociferated a third; "for Nance Hagerty tould Kit Lacy and she ought to know, be raison of being about the cows morning and evening at the big house, that Maaster Fred. got a power of money for making an illigant spaach about mancipashon." I was greatly amused. It was all the same to these poor fellows. Joy was depicted on every face at Glenalta, and to enquire into whys and wherefores is quite too tame for the rush of Hibernian sympathy. The meeting with _Phil._ was another rich repast of mind; and young Bentley seemed so share the scene like a brother. When I returned to dinner, I found preparations going forward near the house which ended in a piper and a dance upon the green turf, in which the young people of the family took part. A great basket of bread-cakes sweetened with a little sugar, and a single draught to each of Kerry cider, made _all_ the entertainment as related to eating and drinking; hilarity and affection supplied the rest, and I could not help remarking, that I had never till then seen so many people made supremely happy at so trifling an expense. With us at Selby it would have required the winning wiles of at least an ox, and tree tierces of ale, to have prevailed on so many people to come together. When assembled, they would neither pipe nor dance: the gladdest tribute would consist in a few deafening shouts, and, after some coarse and clumsy merriment, the well-fed sons of England would stagger home, filled to the throat, regardless of all sentiment which could not be identified with roast beef and brown stout. Only give an Irish population permission to share in your feelings, and you may have a crowd at your heels in a moment, in any part of the kingdom, as I am told; but I can now say from experience, that, if you _deserve_ affection, you may have an honest flow of its choicest streams unbought, except by reciprocating kindness. These poor people would endure anything for my aunt, her children, and Mr. Otway; and though I have given you a ridiculous specimen of ignorance, in relating the conversation of the bonfire, I am bound in justice, as a _set off_, to add, that when the festivities of the evening were at an end, Mr. Oliphant beckoned to two youths, who appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen, and whom he called by