After living with the Malones for a whole winter, Kathleen found the dainty little lady as adorable as ever. Now, on St. Patrick's Day, just a year from the time Aunt Hannah's letter had reached her in far Donegal, Kathleen had grown so fond of the whole jolly, noisy family, that she wondered how she had ever lived anywhere else. Danny, also, had made a place for himself and was earning good wages in the linen shop. Not a holiday had he taken in the whole winter until this seventeenth of March, when he entered the sports. "Ireland was always famous for her athletes," said his uncle, as he began serving supper to the hungry brood. "Haven't you been doing anything to make your name famous, Kathleen mavourneen?" he asked kindly. Kathleen blushed to find everyone looking at her and waiting for her answer. "Speak up, for the honor of old Donegal," said Deena. "I saw her standing before the whole class with a paper in her hand the other day," said Anna. "It looked as if she were reading it." "Confess, confess!" cried Deena. "Don't hide anything from us. Let us know the worst at once." Kathleen had seen so much good-natured fun among the children that winter that she knew it would be impossible to avoid telling what it was she had been reading to her classmates. Sooner or later it would have to come out under the children's quizzing, so she spoke frankly, saying, "It was only a paper we had to write about the learning in Ireland." Up went the hands in admiration. "Our little Kathleen a writer!" said Hannah in mock astonishment, while Deena said reproachfully, "And she would have concealed it from her loving family!" "It _is_ a blow," murmured Anna; and Norah said, "Go fetch it, and read it at once." "Yes!" shouted everybody. "Go fetch it and read it." Kathleen looked at Captain Conn, who usually decided everything for the whole family. "Yes," said Conn with a merry smile; "there's no harm in reading it to us." So Kathleen fetched the little composition and read it with flaming cheeks and beating heart. It was called: LEARNING IN IRELAND There must be a great deal of learning still left in Ireland, but the books do not say so much about it as about the learning of long ago. When St. Patrick lived, he built a great many monasteries here in the green country, and set the fashion to study and learn in them. Other saints followed him and built more monasteries, and wherever there was a monastery there was sure to be a school where the sons of Irish chiefs might study. There were a great many chiefs and they must have had a great many sons; but the sons of the common people could also learn from the monks, and very often there were rich and poor studying together in the same house.