pathetic, and very ardent; and then turning his honest blue eyes on the Carlingford mountains, as if he had been addressing the form of Fin-mac-Coul extended thereon. "It's a word," continued Peter, "that has often been on the tip of my tongue, but somehow you always frightened it back. My heart got that sore last night, I could not thole any longer. Will you marry me, Nell? for I love you as true as death. And that's the word I worked all night to get leave to speak to you."

The young man had turned pale while he spoke; and Nell, hearing the intense strain in his voice, glanced at his face in awe, while all the colour crept out of her own cheeks.

"What do you say to it, Nell ?"

"Oh, Peter, what put this in your head at all, at all? Weren't we good enough friends ever since we were born? Why do you want to be spoiling everything?"

"There's no friends so good as man and wife. I want to be happy, Nell, and I can't be happy without you."

Nell drew a long breath, and many thoughts flashed through her mind. She believed she could be happy enough without Peter always by her side. As he was, he had been a pleasant part of her life, with his comings and goings, and his manly protecting ways; but, then, how happy she had felt just now rowing her own little boat, and getting home to make her father's breakfast! To marry and settle down into a stout housewife, with a red face and perhaps a scolding tongue -Nell thought with dismay that she had not arrived at the time of life for all that just yet. Besides, Nell had some little romantic ideas of her own which she would not have confessed to any one, but which suddenly grew strong within her as she confronted this question of marriage. Of an honest nature, she was eager to let Peter know at once that she felt for him none of that ardent love which she saw burning and glowing in his eyes for her.

"I couldn't, Peter; I couldn't, indeed. I like you well, but not well enough for that."

A gray look of grief came stealing over Peter's face.

"Don't say it so positive," he said. "Try and think over it."

"I know I never could, Peter, and where's the use of keeping it up? You'll see nicer girls in Portsmouth that will soon put me out of your head."

"I wish I hadn't said it so sudden," said the sailor, mournfully. "I wish I hadn't been a focl. If I had stayed patient in Warrenpoint last night, I might have sailed this evening with my weenie hope in my heart. But now it's all gone-all, all gone."

He turned his head away, and dashed the back of his rough hand across his eyes. Nell stood by and trembled at the grief she had caused and could hardly comprehend.

"Cheer up, now, Peter! You'll forget every bit of it after a while. Men always do. Here's Ned M'Caffrey was as bad as you and worse; and look at him now, married to another girl, and as happy-as happy as the day's long!"

Peter shook his head. "Every man has his own way of things,"

said he, "that's Ned's way; it's not mine. Not but I have a pride of my own, and you needn't be afeard I'm going to torment you. You were singin' in your boat as I came along the shore-go on with your singin' and don't be puttin' tears in them sweet eyes o' yours for me. Shake hands with an old friend, and then-I'm gone."

The next minute he was climbing the green banks above the beach, and making for the road by which he had come; while Nell, looking long after him with a pair of dark, frightened eyes, turned at last to her boat, filling her arms with her basket of butter and the large bouquet whose flaunting blossoms bloomed more brilliantly in contrast to the paleness of her cheeks. Following Peter's advice, she tried to take up her song where she had left it, but somehow a little dry sob that had cut his voice as he spoke seemed to have got into Nell's throat, and choked back the notes as they came.

"It's ill work hurting other people's hearts after all," muttered Nell, giving up the attempt, "let folks say what they may about girls having plenty of lovers."

Just above the Point there is a straggling row of white cottages; and a little off at one side the coastguard's dwelling overlooks the sea. As Nell turned towards the latter, she saw a huge bundle of starched, stiff, snow-white muslins coming down from the high fields. behind, and she stopped, it might be in surprise, for the muslins walked upon two neat little feet with ancles to match.

"Is that Kitty ?" cried Nell; and immediately a golden head was thrust out at one side of the white burden, and a laughing, pink, round face greeted a friend.

"What in life brought Peter Dunne back to Killowen this morning?" cried Kitty; "and what were you talking about yonder together?"

"Oh, nothing!" said Nell, "only a question he wanted to ask. I was able to answer it for him, and he hurried straight back to his ship."

"You answered him badly, Nell, and it's a shame for you. A body could see it in his walk an' him half a mile away."

"Hush, Kitty! Hush! Such a guesser as you are! For God's sake, don't go talking all round about it. I vexed him enough already without that."

"I'm no gossip," said Kitty; "an' I wouldn't vex him nor you for the world. But why did you send him away down-hearted ?”

"Why, how could I help it?" cried Nell, in great vexation. "I'm happy as I am with my friends about me at my father's fireside. I can go and come as I like, an' have my bit of fun-how would it be better with me to have Mrs.' to my name, and a ring on my finger, and to have to behave wise an' prim, while Peter Dunne was sailing round the ocean from year's end to year's end, just havin' to tell the sea-birds that he was the man that owned me."

Nell's cheeks, that had been as pale as her lilies, were now as glowing as the damask of her roses, and there was an indignant sparkle in her dark eyes as she clasped her butter-basket to her breas and tossed her enormous nosegay a little higher on her shoulder.

"Your flowers is sweeter nor your temper, Nell," said Kitty, leaning her laughing face further out of her muslins and burying a little "Peter Dunne's well rid short shapely nose among the carnations.

of such a scoldin' vixen."

"Well, I declare!" cried Nell, panting with indignation, "how very anxious you are about him! Why don't you take the care of him on your own shoulders, Kitty, and then you needn't be frettin' at me about him ?"

"Na!" said Kitty, shaking her mischievous head, and smiling knowingly. "I'm a wee bit young yet for lovers, an' I mean to keep myself so this good while. I'm just lookin' on and taking lessons from the like o' you-an' when my own time comes, I'll know how to manage my affairs."

"Never fear but you will," cried Nell, angrily; "but in the meantime I'd thank you not to be tryin' to manage mine!"

And suddenly turning her back on Kitty she began walking rapidly towards her home with a grieved lip, misty eyes, and a lump in her throat which threatened every moment to break into sobs. Kitty, though some years younger than herself, was her dearest friend, and after the earlier vexation of the morning a quarrel with Kitty was too irritating a mischance. But presently a sweet, shrill voice came flying along the breeze over her shoulder:

"I'm comin' to breakfast with you, when I leave the things with mother. I want a rose for my window, and a taste of Aunt Susie's butter," cried the voice; and at this sound the lump broke in Nell's throat, the sob rose to her lips and fled away, a shower of tears burst from her eyes and fell on the flowers beneath, leaving a glittering smile behind them. Nell was consoled, and hurried into her little white-washed home, on hospitable thoughts intent.

The coastguard's dwelling was a comfortable little house of four rooms. It was pleasant to step off the causeway right into Nell's kitchen, with its wide, bright hearth, tiled floor, and white walls, adorned with shining tins and some pretty woodcuts, primitively framed with scarlet braid and brazen nails. Off this kitchen was a parlour, where strips of carpet were laid on the boarded floor, and a beautiful painted tea-tray always leaned against the wall under the sampler framed in a gilt frame which Nell's dead mother had worked when a girl. Here also were jars of hawthorn and lilac, and an old-fashioned sofa in a chintz petticoat, a curious ornament made of sea-weed, and on the chimney-piece some large foreign shells-by placing which at your ear you could hear the tide coming in and going out-a coloured delph shepherd and shepherdess, the whole being surmounted by a picture of Dan O'Connell upon the wall surrounded by a flock of little black silhouette heads and shoulders of men and women, each on a white ground in a little brown wooden frame, and each said to be a perfect likeness of some relative of the old coastguard, dead or alive.

As the two girls sat at the window, over their oaten bread and butter, Kitty said:

"Those muslins I was bringing in belong to the Hon. Mrs. Flam

borough. She has given mother her washing, and I was there yesterday and such a beautiful place I never set my eyes on. The housekeeper took me into the gardens, and I got a peep at the drawing-room. I say, Nell, how would you like to be a lady, and have a place like yon?"

Kitty's widowed mother was a laundress, and owned a cottage on the Point and a fine field for drying at the foot of the mountain behind.

"I never tried, and I don't know," said Nell; "I'm very well the way I am, if people would only let me alone."

CHAPTER II.

PETER'S COMRADE.

"How do I look, Peter, and am I a genuine sailor? Would my mother know me, if she happened to meet me full in the face?"

The question was asked by one of Peter's fellow-sailors as their ship, bound from Portsmouth to Warrenpoint, crossed the Harbour Bar, and made gallant way down Carlingford Lough.

66

'I don't know about your mother, sir; they say mothers have sharp eyes; but I don't believe I'd have known you myself-an' that's a good deal to say."

"I'll keep out of her way till the freak is over; and, Peter, don't you be saying 'Sir' to me, you know. 'Jack' will come as easy to you, won't it? Hallo! those are the white cottages of Killowen Point, aren't they? And there are the coastguards spying at us." "Aye!" said an old sailor: "Yon's ould Bart, with the telescope cocked at us; and there's Nell herself, the darlin', God bless her, perched beside him on the rocks, with her little fist screwed up to her eye, busy imitatin' her father."

"Who is little Nell herself?"" asked the young sailor who had requested to be called Jack.

"It's well seen you're a stranger, though you do appear to have been about the place before," returned the old tar. Nell is Bart, the coastguard's, only child, and as sweet a bit of a woman as ever bewitched a parish. We're all in love with her in these parts, man, woman, and child of us. She'll nurse you if you're sick, coax you if you're down-hearted, and tease you if you're well and merry. An' there's nothing that girl can't put her hand to, from heading a breaker to taking the butter from a churn. It's well, to my mind, that she doesn't seem inclined for marryin'; for what her ould father would do without her, I'm sure I cannot tell."

"She seems a lively young woman by her movements," said Jack, eyeing the group on the shore through his glass. "What is her face like, Peter?"

But Peter had removed himself some minutes ago, and was busy at the other end of the ship.

Some months had passed since Peter had been sent away "downhearted" by Nell, and though he had been several times back to Warrenpoint in his ship since then, yet he had never once found his way to Killowen. However, the day following the above conversation saw him on the way thither, accompanied by his new fellowsailor, Jack. The gloaming fell as they trudged along, and the road through Rostrevor wood is a dark and gloomy one to travel after the sun has gone down. Through the breaks in the trees on the bay side they could see lights twinkling in the cottages at the Point, moving here and there on the sea, and glimmering faintly on the shores under the opposite mountains. Jack sang and whistled to cheer their travel. Peter was silent, and often glanced anxiously at the lights towards which their faces were set. Arrived at the hamlet, he knocked at the door of a lonely old widow who was his aunt. "Why, Peter, it's never you, my boy? Come in, and bring your friend."

"You can put us up, aunt? My friend from Portsmouth here has come to see the country."

"Welcome be ye both, and I hope the country will please him. Here, Peggy, put turf on the fire! And if he wants fun as well as sight-seein-off with the two of you to Bart the coastguard's. It's Hallow-eve, as I suppose you know, and they're burnin' their nuts and their fingers."

"They may burn them for me," said Peter; "I'm tired." "But I'm not tired," cried Jack.

"Then, if you'd like to go, sir, Peggy 'll show you the way. Just say you're Peter's comrade, and Peter's aunt sent you with her compliments. Peter 'll have a crack here with me till he goes to bed."

Great was the surprise at Bart's when Peggy (a little orphan kept by the widow) appeared on the threshold dragging in a tall stranger by the hand.

"Please, Mr. Mulligan, Peter Dunne's come home, and Peter's aunt sends her compliments, and Peter's friend from England will spend the evenin' with you."

Nell's pleasant kitchen was full of merry faces, and all around were preparations for an evening's amusement. In one corner stood a large tub of clear water, at the bottom of which lay an apple, "ducking for apples" being one of the time-honoured pastimes sacred to Hallow-eve. From a hook in the ceiling hung a string with a cross stick, on one end of which was a candle, on the other an apple; this arrangement being necessary for another play which would shortly be played. A fiddle and bow were slung to a nail on the wall, but the fiddler was at present among those who were clustered round the hearth watching the wonderful revelations of the future which were being made between the bars of the fire by fateful nuts that burned lovingly side by side in fiery couples, or sprang from each other, hissing with hate, and burying their disgust in the ashes. Nell ruled these nut-burning operations, and the first thing