d that her violent attack
on Bridget had been overheard by one whose good opinion, of late, she
was rather anxious to secure, for a delicate reason that shan't be
mentioned here.

"It is generally _talked_, but not _believed_, dear miss, unless by the
idiots and children into whose minds it is continually dinned by
malicious persons, who know that their occupation would be gone if the
truth were known, and who struggle to shut out the light and knowledge
of Catholicity from the souls of their wretched hearers with the same
cruelty that the tyrant shuts out the light of heaven from the dungeon
of his captive. I thought this was a free country," he continued; "but I
find the most odious of tyrannies, domestic tyranny, and the tyranny of
opinion, established here. I, myself, have been its victim in no less
than six instances. Yes, miss, I was turned out of employment, and
cheated out of my wages, as I would not say my prayers with, or square
my creed in accordance with, the notions of my eccentric and fanatical
employers."

"That was too bad, Murt," said she, laughing. "Ha, ha, ha!"

"It was almost as bad as your own attempt to rob these orphan children
of the faith of their fathers. For they were young, innocent, and
helpless; but for me, I am able to work, and can defy any tyrant your
country affords," said he, in a passion. "There is not, I believe," he
added, "on earth, a more odious tyranny, except the landlord tyranny in
Ireland, than that of your sectarian Methodist, Presbyterian,
Episcopalian, Nothingarian tyranny in America."

"You Irish should learn to correspond with the institutions of the
country, and should not attempt to introduce Popery into this Protestant
land."

"Protestant land!" said Murty. "We never dream of this being a
Protestant land when we land on its shores. We look on it as the land of
liberty, where no form of religion is dominant, and where all are
equally protected. Protestant land! Why, this sounds odd in a world
first discovered and trod on by Catholics. This sounds bad in a republic
established by the aid of Catholic arms, blood, and treasure, despite of
the tyranny of Protestant England. This slang of Protestant land is
intolerable in a people against whose liberties no Catholic sword was
ever unsheathed, though the founder of the sect of which your friend Mr.
Barker is preacher, John Wesley, offered George III. the services of his
forty thousand Methodists to put down the American