Kathleen had seen so much good-natured fun among the children that winter that she knew it would be impossible to avoid telling what it was she had been reading to her classmates. Sooner or later it would have to come out under the children’s quizzing, so she spoke frankly, saying, “It was only a paper we had to write about the learning in Ireland.”
Up went the hands in admiration. “Our little Kathleen a writer!” said Hannah in mock astonishment, while Deena said reproachfully, “And she would have concealed it from her loving family!”
“It is a blow,” murmured Anna; and Norah said, “Go fetch it, and read it at once.”
“Yes!” shouted everybody. “Go fetch it and read it.”
Kathleen looked at Captain Conn, who usually decided everything for the whole family.
“Yes,” said Conn with a merry smile; “there’s no harm in reading it to us.”
So Kathleen fetched the little composition and read it with flaming cheeks and beating heart. It was called:
LEARNING IN IRELAND
There must be a great deal of learning still left in Ireland, but the books do not say so much about it as about the learning of long ago.
When St. Patrick lived, he built a great many monasteries here in the green country, and set the fashion to study and learn in them.