"Then she is mine!" in a transport of exultation exclaimed the count.

"She is, my lord!" replied the brother: "nor is this the first honour of the kind that your family has conferred upon ours."

"How so?" inquired the count.

"One of your ancestors espoused an ancestor of my sister's and mine."

"The name?" eagerly asked the count. "Therese l'Estrange," was the reply.

The count's banqueting-room was one blaze of light, and around its sumptuous board were seated the count's illustrious relatives and the choicest of his intimates and friends. They were at supper-the viands were removed, and the nearest of his kinsmen rising, demanded a chalice of gold! 'Twas brought; he filled it to the brim, and bowing to the lady and the count, he drank "To the bridegroom and bride!” It was the day after the trial; and upon the morning of that day a second and a fairer Therese had been grafted on the family tree.

"I SEE thim, not tin minutes ago, cross over to the corner of the round meadow, forenint the hill. I'm thinking they're gone down to the Bleach Ground."

"Them!—who, Molly ?"-continued a young man, whose inquiry had elicited the above information from the old village gossip, Matty Flinn.

"Why, Miss Mary Sullivan, and her Dublin cousin, Jessie Armstrong, and somebody else, to be sure; there's no getting sight or light of Miss Mary, since that one came to the country; not but what she's a nice slip of a girl, too, only not to be compared to our own born child-as I may call her." The young man smiled, and without further observation passed on to the "round meadow."

"There's one 'ill be there afore ye, my boy," said the woman, as she leaned her withered arms across the halfhatch door, and replaced her pipe in her mouth-" and one that 'ill make you look sharp if ye're after the same sport. Och hone! Och hone!" she added, after a long pause, " it's sorrowful thinking what's afore the young."

I must now briefly explain who were the parties that excited even the sympathy of Matty Flinn.

Two brothers of the name of Sullivan, some years previous to the time at which my story commences, had quitted the North of Ireland to reside in the South. They were skilful, honest, and industrious; and the work of their hands naturally prospered. After the lapse of a few years they were universally looked upon as among the most substantial yeomen of the county, and were respected alike by rich and poor. Cornelius, the younger of the two, had established a bleach green, on the banks of the stream that turned the elder brother's mill. The bleacher's dwelling stood-always neatly white-washed, and surrounded by wild roses—at the bottom of a little dell, through which the clear water murmured and sparkled on its course; while the cottage of the miller was built by the mill-side. Corney had been blessed with only one child; and, without the aid of poetic imagination in any way, she might truly be pronounced a most interesting if not a beautiful girl; her childhood had been one of delicacy and suffering and if the almost blighted bud did at last blossom, it still seemed unable to bear the cold breath of winter, or the scorching heat of summer; but Mary's kind parents shielded her alike from both, and she increased in loveliness and innocence beneath their roof, even as her own water lilies were shaded and nourished by the moist and fostering bank on which they grew.

Mary's delicate health usually prevented her from joining the village girls either at wake, fair, or pattern; but were it not for the interruptions of sickness her life might have been termed one long holiday; her only employments consisted in occasionally aiding in watering the bleaching linen, in discharging the duties incident on the care of a small dairy, and in looking to the family needle-work. She would move silently, both within and without the house, after the footsteps of her parents; ready to cheer them with her soft, sweet smile, or to assist, when permitted, in their toils; but she

always seemed serene and happy—whether occupied in these domestic matters, or seated on the green sward that sloped from their threshold to the stream, her thin, white hands clasped over her knees, her face upturned, and her eyes fixed on the clear blue sky, or the moving clouds as they passed along the heavens.

Without being sensible of it, she must have imbibed much poetic feeling by such a life. Surrounded by beautiful scenery, apart from cities and their vices, the budding, flourishing, fading, and decayed leaves alone told her of the changing seasons; and, as they came and departed, reminded her that another year had been added to her existence. The prayers, even though she might not fully understand them, which she repeated at her mother's knee, were hallowed by a holy mystery to her unformed mind; and the rude chapel, where in an unknown tongue what she believed God's veritable language rang upon her ear, appeared a sacred temple she would have died rather than profane. The deep but delicate tracery of such a mind might have afforded intense interest to some of our morbid mental anatomists, who too often destroy the rose in search of an imagined canker, and would fain extract poison from the lily's bosom. Her opportunities for acquiring knowledge were indeed limited; the school was too distant for her to attend-if truth must be told, her mother could neither read nor write, and her father was too busy to think of her education. The good man had, it is but honest to confess, in common with many other worthy men, an antipathy to learned ladies, and could not imagine any reason why Mary should be more accomplished than her mother, who was, to use his own phrase," as clean-skinned—as righthanded-as honest, and as pretty a woman, as you'd see in the country side." Had it not been for the miller's son, her cousin Alick, I really think she never would have learned even to read; but Alick proved himself the very model of a tutor. The boy would sit, hour after hour, pointing with a crow-quill to the half-legible words and letters of "the read-a-made

asy,"-coaxing, explaining, entreating—but never even reproving his gentle little pupil. It was, however, astonishing how rapidly Mary improved when she could once fairly get through a book; she soon became teacher in her turn-would 'read aloud the Seven Champions, and the adventures of the robber Freney, with so much effect, when only thirteen, that Alick, who was three years older, absolutely began to deliberate whether he, in his own proper person, would become eighth champion or Freney the second.

Alick had only one brother-an elder but not a wiser youth; for poor Walter-or, as he was usually called, Watty -was considered so devoid of intellect as to be unable to render assistance to his father in any way; he was impatient of control, idle, and restless; but shrewd withal, and often keen of speech-sometimes as just as severe in his remarks ; scrupulously honest, and full of truth; he loved wandering, and submitted to the restraint of a' moderate quantity of clothes with evident reluctance; had a deep, melodious voice, and, in early boyhood, a deadly hatred to his brother— changed, however, by a simple circumstance into as strong an affection. The two youths were passing through a distant village where Alick had been sent to transact some business for his father; strange boys gathered round and mocked at Walter, who, with a wreath of scarlet poppies inchis black and flowing curls, presented to their unholy feelings a fit subject for mirthful scorn; the colour deepened on the cheek of the insulted lad, but, before he could retaliate, Alick turned on the tormentors, and wielded a shillala with so much spirit that they fled in all directions; one, however a cowardly, ill-conditioned fellow-suddenly turned, and directing a stone at the hero, felled him to the earth; in another moment Walter was bending over his brother, uttering the most piercing shrieks, and wringing his hands in bitter agony; the effects of the blow were merely stunning, but the afflicted youth never forgot Alick's interference on his behalf; he became troublesomely officious and affectionate, and would weep like an