On the morning of Mrs. M'Mahon's funeral, the house as is usual in such cases, was filled with relatives and neighbors, each and all anxious to soothe and give comfort to the afflicted family. Protestants and Presbyterians were there, who entered as deeply and affectionately into the sorrow which was felt as if they were connected to them by blood. Moving about with something like authority, was Dennis O'Grady, the Roman Catholic Parish Clerk, who, with a semi-clerical bearing, undertook to direct the religious devotions which are usual on such occasions. In consequence of the dearth of schools and teachers that then existed in our unfortunate country, it frequently happened, that persons were, from necessity, engaged in aiding the performance of religious duties, who were possessed of very little education, if not, as was too often the case, absolutely and wholly illiterate. Dennis was not absolutely illiterate, but, in good truth, he was by no means far removed from that uncomfortable category. Finigan, the schoolmaster, was also present; and as he claimed acquaintance with the classics, and could understand and read with something like correctness the Latin offices, which were frequently repeated on these occasions it would be utterly impossible to describe the lofty scorn and haughty supercilious contempt with which he contemplated poor Dennis, who kept muttering away at the _Confiteor_ and _De Profundis_ with a barbarity of pronunciation that rendered it impossible for human ears to understand a single word he said. Finigan, swollen with an indignation which he could no longer suppress, and stimulated by a glass or two of whiskey, took three or four of the neighbors over to a corner, where, whilst his eyes rested on Dennis with a most withering expression of scorn, he exclaimed--“Here, hand me that manual, and get out o' my way, you illiterate nonentity and most unsufferable appendage to religion.” He then took the book, and going over to the coffin, read in a loud and sonorous voice the _De Profundis_ and other prayers for the dead, casting his eyes from time to time upon the unfortunate clerk with a contemptuous bitterness and scorn that, for force of expression, could not be surpassed. When he had concluded, he looked around him with a sense of lofty triumph that was irresistible in its way. “There,” said he, “is something like accent and quantity for you--there is something that may, without derogation to religion, be called respectable perusal--an' yet to say that a man like me, wid classical accomplishments and propensities from my very cradle, should be set aside for that illiterate vulgarian, merely because, like every other janius, I sometimes indulge in the delectable enjoyment of a copious libation, is too bad.”