Willy Burke, or, The Irish orphan in America - Digital Repository ...

102 WILLY BURKE; OR,
CHAPTER VII.
THL FOURTH OF JULY POCKET MONEY.
'EITHER Father Fitzherbert nor Mr.
Talbot had forgotten their engagement
with regard to sending the brothers to
school; and, on the Wednesday following,
they both went to an excellent
evening school, whose teacher was, in
every respect, qualified for the charge
he held, being as conscientious in the discharge of his
duty as he was fully competent to fulfil it. Father Fitzherbert
had been mainly instrumental in establishing this
school for the instruction of boys who were unable to
attend any day-school ; and it was his practice to visit it
at least once a week, so as to examine the progress of
the boys, and ascertain that nothing was to be neglected
that could possibly promote their improvement.
It was Willy's custom, moreover, to avail himself, on
Sunday evenings, of Father Fitzherbert's kind permis-
sion to visit his library. The first time he went he prevailed
on his brother to accompany him ; but Peter had
no love for reading, still less for that solid and useful
kind to which his brother, by the priest's advice, applied
himself, and he could never be brought to go again.
" Where 's the use ", he said, " of shuttin' one's-self
up there in a room over a book, the only evenin' in the
week that we have to ourselves ? An' then such books as
you read in it : if a body had a story-book or something
that way, it wouldn 't be so bad ; but no, its the ' Lives