“Mr. Reilly,” said the squire, “I’m told that you are a very well educated man; indeed, the thing is evident.  What, let me ask, is your opinion of education in general?”

“Why, sir,” replied Reilly, “I think there can be but one opinion about it.  Without education a people can never be moral, prosperous, or happy.  Without it, how are they to learn the duties of this life, or those still more important ones that prepare them for a better?”

“You would entrust the conduct and control of it, I presume, sir, to the clergy?” asked Sir Robert insidiously.

“I would give the priest such control in education as becomes his position, which is not only to educate the youth, but to instruct the man, in all the duties enjoined by religion.”

The squire now gave a triumphant look at the baronet, and a very kind and gracious one at Reilly.

“Pray, sir,” continued the baronet, in his cold, supercilious manner, “from the peculiarity of your views, I feel anxious, if you will pardon me, to ask where you yourself have received your very accomplished education.”

“Whether my education, sir, has been an accomplished one or otherwise,” replied Reilly, “is a point, I apprehend, beyond the reach of any opportunity you ever had to know.  I received my education, sir, such as it is, and if it be not better the fault is my own, in a Jesuit seminary on the Continent.”

It was now the baronet’s time to triumph; and indeed the bitter glancing look he gave at the squire, although it was intended for Reilly, resembled that which one of the more cunning and ferocious beasts of prey makes previous to its death-spring upon its victim.  The old man’s countenance instantly fell.  He looked with surprise, not unmingled with sorrow and distrust, at Reilly, a circumstance which did not escape his daughter, who could not, for the life of her, avoid fixing her eyes, lovelier even in the disdain they expressed, with an indignant look at the baronet.

The latter, however, felt resolved to bring his rival still further within the toils he was preparing for him, an object which Reilly’s candor very much facilitated.

“Mr. Reilly,” said the squire, “I was not prepared to hear—­a—­a—­hem—­God bless me, it is very odd, very deplorable, very much to be regretted indeed!”

“What is, sir?” asked Reilly.

“Why, that you should be a Jesuit.  I must confess I was not—­ahem!—­God bless me.  I can’t doubt your own word, certainly.”

“Not on this subject,” observed the baronet coolly.

“On no subject, sir,” replied Reilly, looking him sternly, and with an indignation that was kept within bounds only by his respect for the other parties, and the roof that covered him; “On no subject, Sir Robert Whitecraft, is my word to be doubted.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” replied the other, “I did not say so.”

“I will neither have it said, sir, nor insinuated,” rejoined Reilly.  “I received my education on the Continent because the laws of this country prevented me from receiving it here.  I was placed in a Jesuit seminary, not by my own choice, but by that of my father, to whom I owed obedience.  Your oppressive laws, sir, first keep us ignorant, and then punish us for the crimes which that ignorance produces.”