They had been instrumental in establishing a free school for the sons of poor Protestant clergymen in the town which bordered on their grounds, and they took us to see it. It was market-day, so the main street was full of the lower order of Irish, with their horses and carts, asses and panniers, tables and stands full of eatables and articles of clothing. Sometimes the cart or car served as a counter on which to display their goods. The women in bright-colored cotton gowns and white caps with full double borders, made a very gay appearance. As we all passed through the crowd to the school-house, the enmity of the Papists to Protestant landholders was but too evident. Though Mrs. Edgeworth had been the Lady Bountiful of the village for many years, there were no bows or smirks for her and her friends, no making way before her, no touching of hats or pleasant looks. A sullen expression and a dogged immovability were on every side of us. Mr. Butler, who had but just arrived in Edgeworthtown, was as much struck with it as we were, and it quite excited him. He remarked upon it as a want of manners in the people, and called them uncivilized; but there was more in it than that. It spoke to us Americans of the long train of oppressive measures under which the Irish had groaned for years; of the Protestant clergy paid by rates levied on the Roman Catholics, and of the tyranny exercised by Protestant landholders. Twenty-nine years have passed since I stood in that Irish crowd, and much has been done to improve their condition; all the political disabilities then complained of by the Papists have been removed, oppressive laws have been done away with, emigration has relieved the land of its surplus population; and were it not for the designs of the Romish Church to wrest the island from the dominion of a Protestant power, that country might now be prosperous and happy. When we visited Miss Edgeworth, she had published her last work, "Helen," and was writing another to be called "Taking for Granted," but I never heard of its being published. She told me that she meant to show the mischief of taking things for granted, and acting upon them as if they were known facts; and she begged me to send her any instances of the evil consequences of "taking for granted" which fell under my observation. ON A PAIR OF OLD SHOES.