Luke had been early apprenticed to the linen trade—and that fact in itself indicates that his father was a man of means. For in the endeavour to keep the trade “exclusive,” a high fee was charged, and a fairly long apprenticeship insisted on. After the repeal of the Edict of Nantes many French Protestant refugees settled in Ireland. Some of these were highly skilled in the linen manufacture and a settlement of them under Louis Crommelin in Lisburn, a town on the Marquis of Hertford’s estate, made that place a thriving centre of the industry. After Luke Teeling had completed his apprenticeship, he stayed on in Lisburn, got a lease from the Marquis of Hertford, and started a bleachyard of his own; and he was so successful, that Mr. George Taaffe needed to have no misgiving about the future when he gave his beloved daughter to him. The early years of the married life of Luke and Mary Teeling were years of unclouded happiness. A little Elizabeth, called perhaps after the mother Mary Teeling had never known, came to them the following year. She was followed by a goodly train of brothers and sisters: Bartholomew, George, Charles, Luke and John were the boys. The girls, in addition to Elizabeth, were Mary, Alice (called after Alice Taaffe who had married James Lynch, of Drogheda), and Millicent. Fortunate families, like fortunate nations, “have no history,” and there is little to record of Mary Teeling during the years when her boys and girls were growing up. In 1782 her husband acquired the lease of some building ground on Church Hill and built a residence for his family in keeping with his wealth and position; and a decade and a half of happy years passed swiftly under its dignified roof. The large family party which gathered permanently round the Teelings’ board was seldom without a reinforcement of guests: business correspondents like Mr. Sam Wall, of Worcester, or merchants from Dublin and Belfast, were sure of a hearty welcome there. Old Mr. George Taaffe loved to come from Ardee, and spend a month or two with his beloved grandchildren. Aunt “Ally” Lynch from Drogheda, and kind Uncle James were frequent visitors. The elder boys, Bartle and George and Charles, who were attending Mr. Saumarez Dubourdieu’s famous classical school in the town, had frequent permission to bring home their schoolfellows to dinner or supper, and Mrs. Teeling’s “parties” were voted the most delightful in Lisburn. As the boys grew older other guests were much in evidence—young officers from the camp at Blaris-Moor with whom the Teeling lads fenced, or went fishing or shooting, or rode to hounds, liked to be asked when the day’s sport was over to accompany them to the hospitable mansion on Church Hill, where a pleasant supper and a dance would wind up many a delightful evening. The Teelings were noted horsemen—an hereditary trait. The writer in _The Gentlemen’s Magazine_, having quoted the younger Bartholomew Teeling’s description of his father and uncles as