followed his example, while his brothers, four in number, remained in the Protestant communion. The subject of our sketch was apprenticed to a respectable master carpenter and timber merchant in Bandon, but circumstances highly creditable to the young convert induced the severance of the connection before his period of apprenticeship was expired, and we next find him working at his trade in Cork, where he remained for some six months, after which he returned to Bandon. He next crossed over to Manchester, at the request of some near relatives living there. Subsequently he spent a few weeks in Dublin, where he worked as builder's clerk; and finally he revisited Manchester, where he had made himself numerous friends. It was in the summer of '67 that Allen last journeyed to Manchester. He was then little more than nineteen years old, but there is reason to believe that he had long before become connected with the Fenian conspiracy. In his ardent temperament the seeds of patriotism took deep and firm root, and the dangers of the enterprise to which the Fenians were committed served only to give it a fresh claim upon his enthusiastic nature. When Colonel Kelly quitted Dublin, and took up his quarters in Manchester, Allen was one of his most trusted and intimate associates; and when the prison door grated behind the Fenian leader, it was Allen who roused his countrymen to the task of effecting his liberation. Allen had by this time grown into a comely young man of prepossessing appearance; he was a little over the middle height, well shaped, without presenting the appearance of unusual strength, and was always seen neatly and respectably dressed. His face was pale, and wore a thoughtful expression, his features, when in repose, wearing an appearance of pensiveness approaching to melancholy. His eyes were small, the eyelids slightly marked; a mass of dark hair clustered gracefully over a broad pale forehead, while the absence of any beard gave him a peculiarly boyish appearance. Gentle and docile in his calmer moments, when roused to action he was all fire and energy. We have seen how he bore himself during the attack on the prison van, for he it was whom so many witnesses identified as the pale-faced young fellow who led the attack, and whose prophetic assurance that he would die for him, greeted Colonel Kelly on regaining his freedom. During the magisterial investigation he bore himself firmly, proudly, and, as the English papers would have it, defiantly. His glance never quailed during the trying ordeal. The marks of the brutality of his cowardly captors were still upon him, and the galling irons that bound his hands cut into his wrists; but Allen never winced for a moment, and he listened to the evidence of the sordid crew, who came to barter away his young life, with resolute mien. The triumph was with him. Out of the jaws of death he had rescued the leader whose freedom he considered essential to the success of a patriotic undertaking, and he