CHAPTER III.

THE HON. MRS. FLAMBOROUGH.

NELL'S fit of uneasiness passed away, and she was ready to trust Jack implicitly and to declare herself satisfied, even though he gave only a very vague account of himself. She was quite uncertain of when they were to be married or where they were to live; but in the meantime he hung about her, worshipping her with the utmost devotion, and obedient to her slightest wish. He had given her a ring which had made her the envy of the neighbourhood, jewels being quite unknown to the sailors' wives about Killowen Point. Those who preferred to think badly of Jack, considered this trinket as a token that he was not what he ought to be. For how could a poor sailor come honestly by a diamond ring?

"Father's uneasy," said Nell, one evening, when the old man had fallen asleep in the chimney corner, and the lovers were talking in the firelight; "he says he wishes you weren't such a stranger. He's afraid you will be taking me far away from him."

66

Well, my love," said Jack, "old people must expect to be left behind. It has always been so, and it cannot be helped. It is pretty certain that you and I are not going to take up house on Killowen Point. There is a future before us very different from that."

Nell's heart swelled with a great pain; she glanced around her humble home, the home where she had been so happy and free from care; and it came across her sharply that she had never been so light of heart since the night when this fascinating stranger had suddenly appeared on her hearth. Why could she not have guarded herself against his charming ways, and remained merry and free in the dear old chimney corner? Or else why not have given her love to another, who would have respected her devotion to her father, and would have allowed her to spend her life by his side? The firelight flickered over the old man's gray head, drooping in slumber, and threw pathetic lines over his face, and a wild sorrow suddenly rose up in Nell and shook her till she grew faint and sick, seeing vividly before her, as if in the present, that hour which would find the old man here alone in the solitude and silence, and no daughter within reach or call. Tick, tick, went the clock on the wall, and boom, boom, rolled the waves on the shingle. The clock's voice had been as the cricket's merry chirrup, the sea's friendly roar as music which was a natural accompaniment to life; now, for a strange moment, the one was like the lonely beating of a broken heart in a human breast, the other like a cruel summons to a new and uncongenial life, to be passed in strange and unhomelike lands. In that moment she saw her home empty of her, all the corners unfamiliar and unacquainted with her; she heard strangers' footsteps on the tiles, across which her little heels could clink so pleasantly; she beheld the gray old head laid on a bier and carried away in forsaken silence to the graveyard on the mountain

side. She saw herself returning, after years, to kneel remorsefully at an untended grave.

Nell neither sobbed nor spoke, as the vision of the future passed and the sorrow shook her soul; but a spasm contracted her brows, all unseen by the gay blue eyes which were turned on the dancing firelight with a serene and self-complacent stare. Another pair of eyes were fixed on her however, and saw the unwonted sorrow upon her face. Peter Dunne, passing and repassing the house, like a wandering spirit, saw the group in the firelight through the window, and smitten with a pain more keen even than hers, vowed that he would bring that yellow-haired, softly-smiling suitor to his senses, and free Nell from the uncertainty which he believed to be the cause of her pain. He walked up and down patiently till Jack came out of the house, and then he joined him and walked by his side. "Is that you, Peter?" said Jack, carelessly; "lurking about as usual. A rough night for a saunter on the beach."

Sir,” said Peter, "I want to have a serious word with you, for

once."

“Once, twice, thrice: as often as you like!" said Jack, with a

yawn.

"When are you going to be married, sir ?"

"That's a point on which I feel very uncertain, Peter."

"But I tell you that you must make up your mind, sir," said Peter, angrily.

"And I tell you, my good fellow, that I shall do as I please, and that I am not going to have you dogging my steps in this very impertinent manner. It would be much better taste if you would go about your business, and allow me to manage my affairs my own way."

"I don't know anything about taste," said Peter; "that is a matter for ladies and gentlemen-but I know that I will never leave your side till I see you married rightfully in your own name in yonder church."

"For very little I would throw you into the sea, Peter."

"Would you?"

"There, don't look so dangerous. I'm not sure I should do it— but at least I should try."

"Don't; because I'd rather not hurt you if I could help it, if not for old times' sake, at least for the sake of-her."

"I know you are a good fellow, Peter, and I don't intend to quarrel with you. Besides, to tell you the truth, I am quite as perplexed as yourself. If we were not so desperately fond of one another, I'd be inclined to give the thing up altogether. I am afraid my mother will make a horrible row."

"Then, for God's sake, make up your mind, and don't keep Nell in this uncertainty. If you told her honestly it couldn't be, an' went away an' left her with her father at peace, she's that sort of a girl that I believe she wouldn't be a coward over it. But if you keep on shillyshallying, and letting her get fonder of you, you'll break her heart. And, if you do, may you never go to heaven!"

"Thank you," said Jack; "I confess I'm not anxious to go to

heaven just yet. As for telling Nell that it can never be, I'm a great deal too fond of her for that."

"Then why not make your arrangements for marrying at once ?" ""Tis easy to talk, my good fellow, but there are difficulties in the way which you could hardly understand. In the first place, I ought to send her to school. Could I seat her at my table to talk to my friends with such an accent as that ?"

Peter sighed with bitter impatience; and thought of Nell's sweet voice and her pleasant girlish talk which, to him who knew no better, was the prettiest sound in the world. How gladly would he have listened to her accent all his life. But his own interests were put aside just now, and Nell's were at his heart and on his tongue. smothered his disgust and replied:

He

"If Nell has to go to school, it's the sooner the better. There's no need to delay about that."

"But my mother would have to help me in arranging about it, and she must be told before anything else can be done."

"Then go and tell her at once."

Jack shrugged his shoulders. "She will kick up such a confounded fuss about my ears. And I am so exceedingly happy as I am.” "But she is not happy," said Peter, his wrath beginning to rise again.

The result of this conversation was that Jack promised to disappear from Killowen next day in order "to see about" making arrangements towards hastening his marriage with Nell. And he kept his word.

"I don't know rightly what it is he has gone to do," said Nell to Kitty, as she helped her little friend to iron the long-flounced petticoats belonging to Mrs. Flamborough, the very rich and mighty lady who lived in that beautiful mansion which Kitty had admired with so much enthusiasm, away among woods and gardens beyond the pretty little village, some miles off, at the foot of the bay. There's something on his mind that he has to get settled; but it won't be very long till he's back."

"Where is he gone-to England ?" asked Kitty.

Yes, I suppose so," said Nell, sighing to think of how little she really knew about the matter.

After this came on a long succession of wet dreary days, when the gray shore of the bay was washed with rain as well as surf, the seagulls picked their steps over the shining shingle, and the curlews rode in on the white waves and shrieked with delight at the hurlyburly and confusion of storm and drizzle and mist. The flame on Nell's hearthstone burned brightly all the time, and Kitty could still manage to come darting along the causeway with an empty, inverted clothes-basket over her head and shoulders by way of umbrella, and to hold the usual dearly-loved chat with Nell in the intervals of the clear-starching which was so difficult a labour in such weather as this. For a long time the chat was pleasant on these occasions: Nell was not much of a letter-writer herself, and did not expect to hear a great deal about Jack till his return. Peter had vanished from the

Point also, and Kitty had left off talking about him, contenting herself as she sat, her little brogues crossed before the fire, with watching her friend admiringly as she tripped about the house, speculating on her future, and wondering much as to the extent of her affection for her absent lover.

"I wonder does she love him as true, as true as death!" thought Kitty. "Would she work for him and die for him-as I would do for Peter!" But here, startled by the boldness with which this thought had put itself before her, the little girl sprang to her feet and made a great rattle with the tongs to frighten it away.

Days lengthened into weeks, and a good many weeks went past, and there was no letter from Jack nor tidings to tell of his coming back to Killowen. Nell's sweet face began to look strange and scared, and she shunned the neighbours' questions, and kept herself close in her house. "I didn't bid him hurry-there's no call for haste," she would say, with a laugh, when people spoke to her with condolence in their faces. Nevertheless, the days were long and the wind was dreary, and Nell found her customary tasks irksome, and her heart sore, and, do what she would, she could not keep the thought from rising up in her mind, "What if he has gone away and forgotten me, and I shall never see him again?"

Five or six weeks passed away, and the rain had ceased, and the early spring had begun to tip all the grassy places on the mountain side with vivid green. Fin-ma-Coul, as he lay in kingly rest along the skyey crags, was sometimes seen wrapped in draperies of crimson and purple, and crowned with the sun, whereas, the winter through, he had been swathed in a misty shroud which hid him from all mortal ken. The shingle was dry and white, the larks soared and sang, fishermen were mending their boats, and Kitty brought a huge bunch of primroses as a present to Nell, stars of pale gold, nature's largess which she had found under the hedges whereon were hung to bleach the all-important flounces of the mighty Mrs. Flamborough

On one of these sweet, young, soft-shining days, while Nell's heart was heavy and sore, a handsome carriage and pair pulled up on the high road above the Point, and a liveried servant came down the little budding-hedged lane, and all along the causeway, passing every cottage till he came to Nell's.

"Is this where Mr Bartholomew Mulligan, the coastguard, lives?" asked the servant. "The Hon. Mrs. Flamborough wishes to speak to his daughter."

"This is where he lives," said Nell, “and I am his daughter; but Mrs. Fla.nborough does not know me, and perhaps you make a mistake. Mrs. Flamborough's laundress lives a little way further on."

The servant looked doubtful, and went away; but in a few more moments another step was heard approaching the door, there was a rustling of silks and a fluttering of shawls, and a tall splendid-looking lady stepped into the house.

"I am Mrs. Flamborough," said the lady.

SONNETS

ON THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE NEW CHURCH OF ST. PATRICK'S COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH.

N°

I.

THE PAST.

OT vain the faith and patience of the Saints!
Not vain, sad Isle, thy many-centuried woes!
Thy day was tempest-cradled; but its close
Is splendour; and the shattered forest's plaints
In music die. No dull repining taints
The ether pure of memory's realm, that far
Extends, like some long tract left waste by war,
Some tract which eve with peaceful purple paints.
Long time thy priests, my country, were thy poor:
The Cross their book, they raised the Sacrifice
In ruined chancel, and on rainy moor:

Behold, the great reward is come! Arise,
Fane long desired! Beneath thy roofs of gold
Throne the new rites-the creed and worship old!

II.

THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

ALSE peace, false hopes, no more the nations mock:
The founts of the great deep up-burst, a flood-

FAL

O'er it the thunders roll; the vapours scud:
Its cliffs are realms which every watery shock
Drags to the abyss successive, block on block:
O'er their own graves the high-built empires nod:
Alone, unshaken, stands the Church of God,
Sole-throned upon her adamantine Rock.
But, lo! across the gloom a beam shoots forth!
Strong watch-tower of old times, that light is thine!
Thy woes are past. Lamp of the pagan North,
Shine forth again! 'Tis God who bids thee shine!
Isle of the Saints, thy task is thine once more,
To lands self-doomed Saint Patrick's faith restore.

III.

THE NOBLE REVENGE.

HE nations stood around thee, frowning some,

Home coldly pitying when thy head lay low !

On them what good for ill wilt thou bestow,
When Babel mourns, and Salem hath o'er-come?
In Faith's eclipse when earth lies cold and numb,
When pride hath reaped the fruits she helped to sow;
When anarch Peoples, hurled from wealth to woe,
In vain deplore their vanished Christendom;
When from the nether night, his penal prison,
By spurious Science loosed, the Apostate Angel
Lifts his red Bond, and claims the astonished lands,
(No God predicted, but a Fiend, new-risen)
And downward spurns his foul, disproved Evangel-
Raise thou that Cross, and bind the murderer's hands!