to make
the Glen-gariff allotment scheme a chartered company. Although the great
turn in the fortunes of Glengariff had transmitted to other hands the
direction and guidance of events there, her zeal, energy, and, above
all, her knowledge of the people, especially marked her out as one whose
services were most valuable. English officials, new to Ireland and its
ways, quickly discovered the vast superiority she possessed over them
in all dealings with the peasantry, whose prejudices she understood, and
whose modes of thought were familiar to her. By none were her qualities
more appreciated than by Mr. Hankes. There was a promptitude and
decision in all she did, a ready-witted intelligence to encounter
whatever difficulty arose, and a bold, purpose-like activity of
character about her that amazed and delighted that astute gentleman.

"She 's worth us all, sir," he would say to Sir Elkanah Paston, the
great English engineer,--"worth us all. Her suggestions are priceless;
see how she detected the cause of those shifting sands in the harbor,
and supplied the remedy at once; mark how she struck out that line
of road from the quarries; think of her transplanting those pinasters
five-and-thirty feet high, and not a failure,--not one failure amongst
them; and there's the promontory, now the most picturesque feature of
the bay: and as to those terraced gardens that she laid out last week,
I vow and declare Sir Joseph himself couldn't have done it better. And
then, after a day of labor--riding, perhaps, five-and-twenty or thirty
miles--she 'll sit down to her desk and write away half the night."

If it had not been for one trait, Mr. Hankes would have pronounced her
perfection; there was, however, a flaw, which the more he thought over
the more did it puzzle him. She was eminently quick-sighted, keen
to read motives and appreciate character, and yet with all this she
invariably spoiled every bargain made with the people. Instead of taking
advantage of their ignorance and inexperience, she was continually on
the watch over _their_ interests; instead of endeavoring to overreach
them, she was mindful of their advantage, cautiously abstaining from
everything that might affect their rights.

"We might have bought up half the county for a song, sir, if it were not
for that girl," Mr. Hankes would say; "she has risen the market on us
everywhere. 'Let us be just,' she says. I want to be just, Miss Kellett,
but just to ourselves."

A