Bellevue and Its Owners (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879. Excerpt: ... CONCLUSION. is nearly twelve years since the occurence of the events recorded in our last chapter, and we revisit Bellevue to find its occupants changed in nothing save the changes wrought by the lapse of years. Three winters have passed since they laid Uncle Oswald beside the brother whose exemplary kindness had brightened his early life, and to whose intercession in heaven he believed he owed, in his latter years, the merciful gift of his conversion to the true Faith. Edifying all by his solid piety and amiable disposition, he passed to the better world beloved and mourned by all his relatives, his loss casting a gloom over Bellevue they had not felt since the day when Mrs. Ferrers was left a widow. We return to Bellevue to find our old friend taking his place in the conduct of affairs in the town where his immediate ancestors exercised so powerful an influence. With a ready grasp of the bearings of public questions he has acquired an authority surprising even to those who remember his promising boyhood amongst them, and the momentous consequences of the point now at issue spurs him to such exertion that many of the townspeople talk of him as a man who will leave behind him a name worthy to be transmitted to his descendants. The absorbing topic of the day is the educational question, the secular principle being so strong that the heads of one or two very influential firms have established a secular school offering great advantages to the children of their workpeople, several of whom are Catholics with large families; so, to counteract these insidious proceedings, he is labouring with untiring energy to establish partly endowed Catholic schools that these poor children may be withdrawn from the danger of losing their faith. 'My dear fellow, ' said Haldane...