THE IRISH MONTHLY: A Magazine of General Literature. FOURTH YEARLY VOLUME. 1876. DUBLIN: M. H. GILL & SON, 50, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET. 1876. The IRISH MONTHLY is sent pest free for Six Shillings a year paid in advance. The Yearly Volume is issued each November, bound in cloth, price 7s. 6d. 48 75 89 437 478 506 THE IRISH MONTHLY. NELL: A STORY OF KILLOWEN POINT. BY ROSA MULHOLLAND, AUTHOR OF "THE WICKED WOODS OF TOBEREEVIL," &c. CHAPTER I. NELL SAYS "No." NE morning a lark was singing in the blue air right above Carlingford Bay, and right beneath the lark a girl was also singing in a boat which she was paddling alone. Serene mountains lay on both sides of her, draped with golden mist, and close by on the shore children were leaving their play and running home to breakfast, as their mothers called them from the white cottages in the fields above. Nell, the coastguard's daughter, had been a mile down the bay on a housewifely errand to her aunt's farm. She had a basket of butter and a large bunch of flowers, as big as a cabbage, in the boat; and a trail of delicious scent went with her as she shot along the sea. Killowen Point is an arm of gray shingle that stretches out into the bay, just below where the mountains of Killowen tower above the scattered hamlet at their feet. Nell made for the Point, and was about coaxing her boat near land with one oar when she saw a young man coming hastily along the beach to meet her. He was dressed like a seafaring man, and walked with a slight roll in his gait. Running a few steps, he laid hold of the boat and hauled it up the beach, then held the girl's hand while she sprang ashore. "Why, Peter!" she exclaimed, "what brought you back to Killowen? I thought you were to have sailed this evening!" "We do sail this evening," said Peter; "but I had a word to say to a friend, and I felt I could not go without saying it. I worked all night, and they let me off at six this morning. Then I set out to walk to the Point." "Well, I hope you saw your friend since you took so much pains? It was just like you, Peter-all over the world !" "I see her now-she's you, Nell, and nobody else," said Peter, first glancing hurriedly at her face-a glance that was half shy, half |