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fashions. It was formed of gilt pillars, covered with crystals, which borrowed every hue of the rainbow from the slanting sunbeams, which shone out unceasingly all that long day. Large green, purple, and pearl shells lay at its feet, and gauze flags, knotted here and there by clusters of roses, formed a shade, as well as wafted a breeze, over my fair child's head.

"For many nights before the great day came, our child could neither sleep nor eat. The anticipation of the coming event held her in a fever of excitement. Nell was very ill at that time, too, and Canth lost half her zest for the promised amusements when she perceived that her mother's strength would not permit her to attend the birthday feast, nor wear the beautiful silk dress Miss Annie had sent her.

"The night before the sun shone on her seventeenth summer, Canth lay down -to please us,' she said-but, indeed, she slept none. Through my uneasy dozes, I could hear her repeating to herself the little speeches she was to make to all those who came to congratulate her; and humming over her latest learned songs, which were to be reserved for the castle guests. The first beam of morning's light saw her up; and noiselessly she slid out, to wander over the dewy slope, gathering field-flowers, while she impatiently awaited a summons from Miss Annie to go up and get the decking of the day on.

"I had to go that morn to the cliffs, on business of importance for my lord, so that the morning's doings were lost to my eyes; but, faith! not to my ears. All the way on my journey home I heard praises of my child's beauty-how she walked, how she smiled, how she dressed. Two young girls in scarlet kirtles, and snowy crossed kerchiefs, said, as I passed them-'She's not ra'al, you'll find; the fairies have a hand in her. Did you see the gardens all aboo? Why, where we go a-milking every day seems to be dug out of it altogether. I'll never think the castle folk right after this, nor go into the old lord's wood after sunset. Sure, nothing but fairy work could do it-nothing on airth!'

"Nell was up when I got home, but full of gloomy forebodings. I laughed at her and them (for my heart lived on my child's praises), and tried to rouse the bad spirits her late illness had left with her. But, no; she would be uneasy. 'Canth's head would be turned-she could not live in her own station any more after this-the excitement would kill her-she'd get brain fever!'

"Ah!" said the old man, groaning, "that affliction could have been borne, and welcomed, to what came after!

"As soon as Canth's dress had been changed for one Miss Annie thought more becoming for the ball, she bounded down to our dwelling, longing to see and tell me the wonderful doings of the day. As I opened the door to meet her, she clasped my neck; and the kisses which she gave me still burn on my cheek. Wild with delight and ecstacy, the joyful voice was bursting out with her full heart's tidings. But I laid my finger on my lips to silence her, for poor Nell had just fallen into a doze, from which I hoped she would, at least, gain a little strength.

"Canth's little feet, in their satin coverings, stepped without sound into her mother's room, and there, for two hours, she sat motionless. She who, for seven long days, had suffered a turmoil of restlessness, now, when the most brilliant part of the birthday's amusement was about to commence, sat motionless by her mother's bedside, awaiting a blessing from her awakening voice.

"Her dress was like a cloud-so soft, transparent, and snowy. It was studded

here and there with bunches of Araby jessamine (the most prized plant under the gardener's care), and its faint, delicious perfume filled the whole room. Her long hair was left to flow, in its golden beauty, over her shoulders; and a circlet of small emeralds, set with pearls, confined her tresses round the brow, lest they should, in wildly straying, hide one vein of blue or one tint of rose in that charming face. After two messengers had been sent from the castle for her, I roused Nell, for I saw impatience in Canth's eyes, though her lips spoke it not. Her mother rose, and, after Canth had caressed her, and received her blessing, she knelt down, as was her custom, and prayed, lest, as she said, 'Mirth and music might make her forgetful.' I never heard her pray more fervently than she did that night, Nell-the last she ever knelt at your knee, God help you!

"Another messenger from the castle took her off from us; and she had scarcely time to join Miss Annie, when a travelling-carriage, bearing young Percy de Vere, drove in, followed by all the tenantry, each trying to outshout the other in their Welcome home !''Welcome home!'

"Although I was most reluctant to leave Nell, I was obliged to go up to the castle for a few hours; for the old lord would have taken it unkindly had my voice not joined in congratulating him on his son's return. But, instead of taking part in the festivities, I joined in Nell's forebodings-I saw that Canth was our child no longer.

"There she was, talking foreign talk that I could not understand, to Percy de Vere; whirling through the room with him, until my eyes grew giddy looking at her. I saw him take a sprig of jessamine from her bosom, touch it with his lips, and place it in his pocket-book, admiring all the while the blushes which came and went with the swiftness of a lightning-flash, brightening her whole face.

"I went back to Nell, resolving to keep Canth more at home; and all the night long, while she revelled in her mirth, my wife and I sat up planning for her safety. Next day our child was too much fatigued to leave her bed; but the day following, she came down to us, Miss Annie coming with her, to tell us they intended taking her up to Dublin with them in the end of the next week.

"Both Nell and I with one voice remonstrated; but the displeasure marked in Miss Annie's face, at what she thought our ingratitude, silenced us. Miss Annie had her way. Our child went to Dublin.

"Although we either heard of or from Canth every week, yet the long months of her absence were unbearable. A cloud of sorrow, which never since has been lifted, fell over us when she journeyed away. The beautiful Canth, who left us like a summer vision, never returned; but, in her place, a pale, languid girl, with hectic colour and distressing cough. The villagers would have it that she was fairy-changed. Even in her delicacy (which I was told was occasioned from over-fatigue and repeated colds) she was not left with us. Miss Annie could not bear her one hour from her sight. She walked with her, occupied the same room, and nursed her day and night. May God bless thee, Miss Annie! You knew not of the dark schemes which were laid against our peace! You, in your purity of heart, never suspected the sin and sorrow which lay in Canth's bosom! Oh, no agony save Nell's could have equalled yours when all was made known!

"It was a fine, bright night in October, that I sauntered down to have a chat with Ned below at the gate. My child, who was not getting strong, was still an

inmate of the castle; and the loneliness of my dwelling without her, in spite of Nell's efforts to make it otherwise, and the constant thought that Canth would fall a victim to consumption, with which the doctors said she was threatened, made me glad to seek talk from any one whose time could afford it to me. Ned and I this night, at all events, walked up and down the village, outside the castle-gates, until it was late enough to be indoors in all reason. But Ned, having heard of some neighbour's child's wedding, would wait out to see her brought home, as if the sight was new to him. Presently loud shouting foretold her coming, and on, through the gloom of the late October night, came troops of men, women, and boys, trampling the autumn leaves beneath their feet, and bearing aloft huge torches, the light of which illumined the whole neighbourhood, and the heavens over it. In the midst of these boisterous, loving people, cantered the bridegroom's grey mare, bearing the gallant owner, while the new-made bride, abashed and blushing, sat behind him, hiding her face from the glare of the torchlight on her husband's shoulder.

"On they rode towards their happy home, passing us by, of course, unnoticed; but from the distance still, for many a mile, the wild mirth was borne back on the breeze, and the torches' light still gleamed in the heavens. Laughing more heartily than I had done for months at some of Ned's remarks, I bade him good-night, and took a short and unfrequented path by the back of his house to my more elegant dwelling. Whistling cheerily, to beguile the time, I went along over the brambles and bushes, hills and ruts, till I got to the interior of the wood-my own footsteps on the mossy ground, or the faint twitters of some disturbed bird, being all the signs of life I had to bear me company. But as I crossed the bridge. that leads to the planted side of the river, I thought I heard whispering. I stopped and listened-all was silent. I advanced a few steps farther, thinking the slight noise might have been the rustling of leaves, when I distinctly heard hurried footsteps pass on swiftly into the gloom, and then faintly die in the distance. I followed them quickly, and as noiselessly as I could; but, losing the track, I laid my finger on the trigger of my gun (which I always carried through the wood at night), thinking that if I fired, I might surprise the intruders out of some exclamation which would lead me to discover who roamed so late through my lord's lands. I fired, of course, in a different direction from whence the footsteps went, lest I should endanger the life of any creature.

"My plan succeeded but too well! The report of the gun was followed by a scream; and the words, 'Oh, Percy, Percy, save me !' in a voice I could not fail to know, rang through the planting. Good God! how my blood curdled! What a pang shot through my heart! How immoveable I stood! How powerlessly I listened !"

The old man sobbed aloud; the traveller had risen, and paced the room with the uneven strides of one deeply agitated. Poor Nell was again on her knees, scarcely conscious of anything that was going on, moaning in the depths of her agony. And the eyes of the form in the tattered clothing shone out with the most unnatural lustre.

"Oh, Percy, save me!' resumed the old man.

"Hush, Canth!' cried a voice which I would know out of a hundred. Blind men have sharp ears, sir."

The traveller let the remark pass unnoticed.

"Hush, Canth! If you love me, be silent. I have already told you what the consequences of a discovery at such a time would be. It was your father who fired-he alone has liberty to do so. But we are safe; he is at the other side of the hedge, or my ears deceive me.' "Do you think so, Percy? Then take me home; lift me in your arms, Percy; I tremble and cannot walk. There now, I feel safe in your strong embrace. But I know I'll never live when you have left me, branded with shame, and unable to clear myself; my father will never admit me to my home again, neither will darling Miss Annie love me longer; and-I fear—'

"Here the words grew faint; he was either moving on with his light burden, or I was growing senseless. It must have been the latter; for soon I fell, without any power to save myself, like a stone to the ground, where I lay insensible, till found by the workmen in the early morn. Home they carried me to poor Nell, in raving fever, and she soon gleaned from my wild talk the misfortune which had befallen our child.

"I lay delirious for many weeks; and if it was the Lord's will to take me then, how much sorrow might have been spared! but Ilis blessed will be done! Ic knows best the time to take us.

"When I became conscious, I heard Percy de Vere had left the castle, and I saw Canth helping her mother to tend me. The sight of her drove me mad again. I started from my bed, and, throwing my hands high above my head, cursed her! -cursed her with deep and heavy curses!-cursed the eyes that looked on her in her infamy, and prayed Heaven to send its awful vengeance on her; though I saw her lying lifeless before mee-lying like a broken reed, her long, fair arms listless at her side, and her eyes closed.

"Nell did all a woman could do to calm me. She might as well have tried to clothe herself in moonbeams. I paced the room like a lunatic until I saw Canth recovered and able to stand. Then I drove her from my house-drove her out in the darkness of the night-on the pitiless world, never to see her more; never!— never!

“I got a relapse, and, after many weeks of fevered suffering, rose from my bed a blind man. My heartless cruelty was chastised by the Lord. As soon as I was able to walk, I went to the castle. The scene which took place here I will not even try to describe; suffice to say, I left the old lord's service, gave back all the power with which he had invested me, all the riches he had lavished on me, and retired here with the remnant of my property, and the only remaining treasure of my heart to this low cabin, which the old lord at his death bequeathed to me for ever. But even here my child's shame followed me; for scarcely had we been settled four months, when, on our return from some out-door occupation one morning, we found a young babe in our bed (just such a tiny thing as Canth had been when Heaven sent her to us), and pinned outside the shawl in which it was wrapped was a card, on which a few lines were neatly written with the words—

'Your child in trust, until her mother can claim her shamelessly.-CANTII.'

"How poor Nell would have managed to bring the wee thing through, I know not, had not Providence sent to her assistance a poor dumb woman, who had just lost a child of her own. She took on Moll's nursing, and, indeed, no mother could have reared her more tenderly, or lavished more love on her. She comes

after us still; we call her dumb Martha. The wealth of her world seems to be in the cot there-Canth's little child."

"Your story's done, old man," said the traveller, stepping before Mick, who now sat wiping the dew of sorrow and excitement from his brow. "But I tell you, fool, dolt that you are! that your child is sinless. I could not believe that the girl whose character you have just sketched could fall from her purity, or forget her duty to Heaven and you. How know you that she was not married ?"

"Fool and dolt back to your teeth!" roared the old man, stamping. "How do I know that she was not married! If she were, why not proclaim it to the world? What need of mystery? Married! Percy de Vere marry her and then journey off, leaving his wife to be branded with shame. Journey off for years, and never write to her-never send an inquiry after her! Likely that! Married! Ha ha!-what reason had she to hide it if she were?" "To save Percy de Vere from being disinherited," hissed the traveller. "Beggary awaited the proclamation of such a union. Curses deeper than those which you

"Husband-Mick! Good God! what's here-what's this?" shrieked Nell, tottering to the light, and holding in her hand some glittering bauble she had rescued from the sea-gull. "A curl!-a long golden curl!-never but on my child's head did anything like it grow; and-and-oh! my heart opens-a ring! -a wedding-ring rolled up in writing-soiled writing! Sir-stranger-whoever you are, will you read it ?”

She was gasping, her eyes were starting wildly, her bosom heaving tumultuously. The traveller put his arm round her tenderly and placed her in his vacant chair. He spoke to her in a low, soft voice, and tried to calm her; but still her words were

"The writing, sir! What's on the paper? Read it, sir-for the love of God, read it, if it's news of her!"

The traveller commenced in a voice quivering with emotion—

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Nell threw herself into the old man's arms and sobbed convulsively, while the stranger cried out exultingly

"I knew it! I knew it! for I met Percy de Vere abroad."

"You met Percy de Vere?" repeated the old man.

"And he told me he was coming home to claim his wife."

"Claim his wife ?" came the old man's echo.

"Not only did he tell me he was coming home to claim his wife”—here the stranger spoke rapidly-"but he came in the Iron Duke, and landed in Kingstown last night, and is now

"And is now ?" the old man's voice was imploring.

"In your cabin !-on the floor beside you. His hand clasps yours, old man. Where is your child-my wife ?"

One unearthly scream now filled the ears of all; and the ragged outcast, who had entered unheard, who had lain crouched in the corner, who had sent the bird on its mission of discovery, reeled to the middle of the floor, with hood thrown back and outstretched arms.

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