the corpse in silent grief, swaying herself backward and forward with a gentle motion, and wringing her hands; yet with so noiseless an action, that the profound silence of the room was never broken. On the opposite side, her fine head resting against the bier-her white, wan fingers. wreathed together in earnest prayer above the body, while a half-stifled sob occasionally shook her delicate frame —and her long and curling tresses fell in flaxen masses over the bosom of the murdered, knelt Moran's betrothed love, Ellen Sparling. As she prayed, a sudden thought seemed to rush upon her, she raised her head, took from her bosom a light green ribbon, and kissing it fervently and repeatedly, she folded and placed it in that of the murdered youth, after which she resumed her kneeling posture. There are few, I believe, who have lived among scenes of human suffering to so little purpose as not to be aware, that it is not the heaviness of a particular calamity, nor the violence of the sorrow which it produces, that is at any time most powerful in awakening the commiseration of an uninterested spectator. The capability of deep feeling may be more or less a property of all hearts, but the power of communicating it is a gift possessed by few. The murmur of a bruised heart, the faint sigh of a broken spirit, will often stir and thrill through all the strings of sympathy, while the frantic ravings of a wilder, though not less real woe, shall fail to excite any other sensation than that of pain and uneasiness. Perhaps it may be, that the selfishness of our nature is such, that we are alarmed and put on our guard, in proportion to the violence of the appeal which is made to us, and must be taken by surprise, before our benevolent emotions can be awakened. However all this might be, being no philosopher, I can only state the fact, that Mr. Morty Shannon, who had witnessed many a scene of frantic agony without experiencing any other feeling than that of impatience, was moved, even to a forgetfulness of his office, by the

quiet, unobtrusive grief which he witnessed on entering this apartment.

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It was the custom in those days, and is still the custom in most parts of Ireland, where any person is supposed to have come by his end" unfairly, that all the inhabitants of his parish, or district, particularly those who, from any previous circumstances, may be rendered at all liable to suspicion, shall meet together and undergo a kind of ordeal, by touching the corpse, each in his turn. Among a superstitious people, such a regulation as this, simple though it was, had been frequently successful in betraying the guilty conscience; and it was a current belief among the peasantry, that in many instances where the perpetrator of the horrid deed possessed strength of mind or callousness of heart sufficient to subdue all appearance of emotion in the moment of trial, some miraculous change in the corpse itself had been known to indicate the evil doer. At all events, there was a degree of solemnity and importance attached to the test, which invested it with a strong interest in the minds of the multitude.

Suspicion was not idle on this occasion. The occurrences of the previous evening at the widow's house, and the loss there sustained by Yamon, contributed in no slight degree to fix the attention of the majority upon him. It did not pass without remark, neither, that he had not yet made his appearance at Mr. Sparling's house. Many wild tales,' moreover, were afloat respecting Ellen Sparling, who had on that morning, before sunrise, been seen by a fish jolter, who was driving his mule loaded with fish along the road towards Kilrush, returning across the hills towards her father's house, more like a mad woman than a sober Christian. Before we proceed further in our tale, it is necessary we should say something of the circumstances which led to this appearance.

When Ellen received the token on the previous evening from young Moran's messenger, she tied her light checquered straw bonnet under her chin, and stole out by a

back entrance, with a beating and anxious heart, to the appointed rendezvous. The old ruined house which had been named to her, was situated at the distance of a mile from her father's, and was at present tenanted only by an aged herdsman in his employment. Not finding Moran yet arrived, although the sun was already in the west, she sent the old man away on some pretext, and took his place in the little rush-bottomed chair by the fire-side. Two hours of a calm and silent evening had already passed away, and yet he came not. Wearied with the long expectation, and by the tumult of thoughts and feelings which agitated her, she arose, walked to a short distance from the cottage, and sitting on a little knoll in the vicinity, which commanded a wide prospect of the sea, she continued to await his arrival, now and then gazing in the direction of the cliffs by which the messenger told her he was to pass. No object, however, met her eye on that path, and no sound came to her ear but the loud, fulltoned, and plaintive whistle of the ploughman, as he guided his horses over a solitary piece of stubble-ground, lightening his own and their labour by the wild modulations of the Keen-the-cawn, or death-wail; the effect of which, though it had often delighted her under other circumstances, fell now with an oppressive influence upon her spirits.

Night fell at length, and she returned to the old house. As she reached the neglected haggart on the approach, a light breeze sprang up inland, and rustling in the thatch of the ruined out-houses, startled her by its suddenness, almost as much as if it had been a living voice. She looked up an instant, drew her handkerchief closer around her neck, and hurried on towards the door. It might be he had arrived by another path during her absence! High as her heart bounded at the suggestion, it sunk in proportion as she lifted the latch, and entered the deserted room. The turf-embers were almost expiring on the hearth, and all was dark, cold, saddening, and

comfortless. She felt vexed at the absence of the old servant, and regretted the caution which induced her to get rid of him. Amid all the intensity of her fondness, too, she could not check a feeling of displeasure at the apparent want of ardour on the part of her lover. It had an almost slighting look; she determined she would make it evident in her manner on his arrival. In the next moment the fancied sound of a footstep made her spring from her seat, and extend her arms in a perfect oblivion of all her stern resolutions. Quite beaten down in heart by constant disappointments, and made nervous and feverish by anxiety, the most fearful suggestions began now to take place of her pettishness and ill-humour. She was alarmed for his safety. It was a long time since he had trod the path over the cliffs. The possibility that here rushed upon her, made her cover her face with her hands, and bend forward in her chair in an agony of terror.

Midnight now came on. A short and heavy breathing at the door, as she supposed, startled her as she bent over the flame which she kept alive by placing fresh sods on the embers. She rose and went to the door. A large Newfoundland dog of her father's bounded by her as she opened it, and testified by the wildest gambols about the kitchen, the delight he felt in meeting her so unexpectedly, at such an hour, and so far from her home. She patted the faithful animal on the head, and felt restored in spirits by the presence even of this uncommunicative acquaintance. The sagacious servant had evidently traced her to the ruin by the fineness of its sense, and seemed overjoyed at the verification of his diagnostic. At length, after having sufficiently indulged the excitement of the moment, he took post before the fire, and after divers indecisive evolutions, he coiled himself up at her feet and slept. The maiden herself in a short time imitated the example.

The startling suggestions that had been crowding on her in her waking moments, now began to shape them

selves in vivid and fearful visions to her sleeping fancy. As she lay back in her chair, her eyes not so entirely closed as to exclude the "lengthening rays" of the decaying fire before them, she became unaccountably oppressed by the sense of a person sitting close at her side. There was a hissing, as if of water falling on the embers just before the figure, and after a great effort she fancied that she could turn so far round as to recognise the face of her lover, pale, cold, with the long dark hair hanging drearily at each side, and as she supposed, dripping with moisture. She strove to move, but was perfectly unable to do so, and the figure continued to approach her, until at length, placing his chilling face so close to her cheek, that she thought she felt the damp upon her neck, he said gently: "Ellen, I have kept my hand and word: living, I would have done it; dead, I am permitted". At this moment a low grumbling bark from the dog Minos awoke her, and she started from her seat, in a state of nervousness which for a short time prevented a full conviction of the non-existence of the vision that had oppressed her slumber. The dog was sitting erect, and gazing with crouched head, fixed eyes, and lips upturned in the expression of canine fear, toward the door. Ellen listened attentively for a few minutes, and a gentle knocking was heard. She recognised too, or thought she recognised, a voice precisely similar to that of the figure in her dream, which pronounced her name with the gentlest tone in the world. What surprised her most, was that Minos, instead of starting fiercely up as was his wont on hearing an unusual sound at night, cowed, whimpered, and slunk back into the chimney-corner. Not in the least doubting that it was her lover, she rose and opened the door. The vividness of her dream, being yet fresh upon her, and perhaps the certainty she felt of seeing him, made her imagine for the instant that she beheld the same figure standing before her. It was but for an