unworthy even of the mighty name which we have before mentioned. Yet all this was far from being remedial, and it was even palliative in a very inconsiderable degree.

They had been sitting together for some time, on the morning of the eighth day from that of Aylmer's departure, without interchanging a single sentence beyond the customary domestic greetings. The old man sat near the fire, his head drooped upon his bosom, and his eyes fixed with a melancholy expression on the clear light blaze of the turfen fire before him, while Katharine, accompanying herself on her harp, murmured over, sotto voce, the words of a popular "keen-the-caun ", the lament of a mother over the grave of a beloved son. We give the stanzas :—

1..

The Christmas light* is burning bright

In many a village pane;

And many a cottage rings to night
With many a merry strain.

Young boys and girls run laughing by,

Their hearts and eyes elate

I can but think on mine, and sigh,
For I am desolate.

II.

There's none to watch in our old cot,
Beside thy holy light;

No tongue to bless the silent spot
Against the parting night.†

I've closed the door, and hither come

To mourn my lonely fate;

I cannot bear my own old home,

It is so desolate!

The Christmas candle-a light, blest by the priest, and lighted at sunset on Christmas-eve, in Irish houses. It is a kind of impiety to snuff, touch, or use it for any profane purpose after.

† It is the custom, in Irish Catholic families, to sit up till midnight on Christmas-eve, in order to join in devotion at that hour. Few ceremonies of the religion have a more splendid and imposing effect than the morning mass, which, in cities, is celebrated soon after the hour alluded to, and long before day-break.

G

III.

I saw my father's eyes grow dim,
And clasped my mother's knee;
I saw my mother follow him,
-My husband wept with me.
My husband did not long remain,
-His child was left me yet;

But now my heart's last love is slain,
And I am desolate!

The song was not concluded when both the melodist and listener were startled by a quick and vehement knocking at the chamber-door. The latter was the first to start from his chair in a passion of terror. Before he could recover the command of speech or action, the voice of the little chambermaid was heard without, imploring instant admission, in accents which showed that all the agitation was not confined to the interior. Katharine hastily slipped back the little bolt, and admitted the eager girl.

"What is the matter, Norry?" exclaimed her mistress. "O ma'am we're all zuin'd intirely. O master! Opausing, as her eye fell on the ghastly figure of the conscience-stricken Fitzmaurice, and fetching her breath for a moment. Come, come this way, Miss Kate, I want to speak a piece wit you", beckoning the young lady after her. Stay!" cried the old man, hoarsely, "what have you

66

seen? Speak, quickly!"

"Oh, murder, sir ?" Norry cried aloud, wringing her hands in agony, "the army, the army,* intirely!" "Coming hither?" inquired Kate.

"Two red coats, wit ould Hasset along wit 'em, miss. Upon the aveny already".

་

The intelligence seemed almost to have paralysed both the mind and frame of Fitzmaurice. He did nothing, proposed nothing, and was even listless, helpless, and passive, while plan after plan, both of escape and con cealment, was suggested and rejected in rapid succession

" Any number of soldiers is so called by the Irish peasantry.

by the agonized daughter and her faithful and anxious attendant. "The back window", "the loft", 66 the turfrick", "between the bed-ticks", "the chimney", were all cast aside as stale and hopeless, when, her eyes suddenly flashing with a gleam of intelligence, Norry slapped the palms of her tough hands together, so as to produce a report that echoed through the house like a pistol-shot, and startled the old man himself from his lethargy of fear.

"The ould makings of a cupboard", she exclaimed, pointing to the pier-glass, "the same place fare I hid the little dog the day the taxman was here, whin he began barken in the wall within".

The proposal was caught up and acted upon instantly. The large glass was removed, and a square niche in the solid wall, originally intended for a cupboard, was disclosed. Into this recess was the terrified old man hurried by the two girls, himself too perfectly overwhelmed with apprehension to offer either opposition or assistance to their movements. The mirror was then carefully replaced, and Katharine, after crossing her hands on her bosom for one moment, in a strong effort to master her struggling anxieties, and murmuring a brief and anxious petition to the throne of mercy, prepared to act her part in the coming emergency with the necessary firmness and composure.

"If he doesn't behave quieter than little Minos, there's little chance for him", said Norry, as she left the room.

The recollection of this circumstance was a new subject of alarm for the sensitive daughter. The story of Miss Fitzmaurice's dog, concealed from a tax-gatherer in a recess behind the pier-glass, and betrayed by his own barking, at the very instant when the old steward was leaving a blank for the article "dogs" in the inventory, had been so generally circulated, and excited so much amusement throughout the country, that there was little hope of its having escaped the ears of Mr. Hasset. For

this, however, she had to trust to fortune, as it was now too late to alter the position of the old man.

In a few minutes the magistrate made his appearance. He had the delicacy, or the wariness, to forbid the approach of his armed attendants, and if it were not for the previous intimation of their approach, the young hostess would have had no reason to judge this other than a visit of mere ceremony. Katharine found herself, for the first time in her life, compelled to violate the truth, in the answers which she returned to this unwelcome guest. She did it, however, with tenderness.

Was her father at home?

He had ridden out (very frequently, understood).
Whither?

She had not asked him.

Did she soon expect him?

She believed his return was quite uncertain.

The magistrate was silent for a few seconds; then seeming to have formed a sudden resolution, he said:

"Miss Fitzmaurice will pardon me, but I have a very disagreeable duty to perform. The presence of her father is absolutely required-and that duty shall not be discharged until every possible means has been resorted to in order to secure it".

"The doors are open, sir", said Katharine, rising, with an assumed haughtiness in her carriage, while her heart bounded with terror; "you are at liberty to use your authority as you please".

The young lady left the room, and the soldiers were admitted. She remained in the next apartment, listening in an agony of the cruelest suspense to the movements of the searchers within. They prolonged their scrutiny in a manner that showed how little reliance their director placed on the equivocations of the fair hostess. At times, a thrill of fierce terror shot to the very centre of her heart, and suspended its pulsation, when the footsteps of

any of the party approached the hiding-place of the criminal.

"To the next room!" said the voice of the magistrate; "don't mind the mouse-holes". Katharine felt relief.

"Easy, sir", exclaimed a fourth man, who had just entered, and in whose sharp, angular, cunning tones, the trembling Kate recognized the voice of Hasset's clerk, a gentleman who, to establish his qualifications for the situation he held, would very gladly have hanged half the parish, if necessary, "you have not done all the bizniz clean yet".

Kate grasped the back of a chair, and drew her light handkerchief tightly around her neck, while her whole frame shivered with a chilling anxiety.

"Well for ye", she heard the new comer continue, in a jeering way, "to have a lad that know's what he's about to guide ye. Did none o' ye hear the little matter about the dog and the tax-gatherer? Poh!"

"I remember something of it, I confess, Linehan", said Hasset, startled.

"Try it then now”.

Almost delirious with fear and disappointment, the miserable daughter fetched a quick and hoarse breath, and bit her lip until the blood forsook it, to prevent her screaming aloud. Her limbs shook convulsively, and her eyes wandered with the wildness of despair around the chamber, while she waited the next movement of the inquirers.

"What are you about there?" exclaimed the informer. "Is it going to pick yourself out o' the glass you are for a prisoner? Behind the picktur is the place, you fool!"

"Never fear, Miss!" whispered Norry, who had just before slipped into the apartment, "that'll bother 'em. They'll find nothen there, barring pusheen and her kittens, for she has a way of her own up into it”.

A suppressed burst of laughter among the men con