T

NOTES IN THE BIG HOUSE.

HE following are two of many letters which lie before us, received from brave knights, from different quarters of the world. We purpose publishing these letters from time to time, and are a little puzzled to know which, among so many, to choose to begin with. "Bombay, September 23rd. "MY DEAR BOYS,-I send you ten rupees, which is 1. I am saving up all my annas for you, and my toys. too. I must stop now, as there is a snake in the garden and I must go and see it killed. I send my love to you all. Yours faithfully,

"J. R. OL." You see our little Indian friend went straight to the point and addressed the little patients themselves. It was a very good plan, indeed, and greatly delighted many children, not only the sick, but those others who serve under the same banner as our knight of Bombay, the letter having been read by the rev. chaplain at the last meeting of the Brigade. So, also, was the following, addressed to the secretary, and dated from a place much nearer home:

"Belfast.

"DEAR SIR,-My father was removed to Belfast last week, and my address is as above. I was very glad to see the great sum of money which was collected this year. If you please, send me a collecting-book and a few tickets, and whatever other little books you have for the last month I also would be glad if you would give me some instructions for the following year. I hope the little patients are getting on well. I should be delighted to get spending one hour with them, but it is impossible. I remain yours truly,

P.S.-Please answer soon.

"F. J. O'D." Many other letters, quite as nice as these, were also read at the last meeting of the B. B. B., and we shall by-and-by give our little absent friends a peep at as many as we can. That was a very plea sant meeting, and we only wish our kind little letter-writers could have heard the charming stories told to the knights by the kind and clever chaplain of the corps. There was a great mustering of the Brigade, and all arrived, badge on shoulder, money-box in hand, looking ready to do or die for the cause, although, it must be said, some of them were so small that they had to be lifted into their places on the benches. But they are not a bit the worse, as members, for being as small and as tiny as they can be. It is well known that some of the bravest soldiers have been very little men; and so some of our most hard-working knights are among the smallest in the band.

Of course the wards were visited after the meeting was over, and the little sick ones, tired of their aching bones, and weary with lying in bed, were gladdened by the merry visitors who poured in upon them. How nice it was to see rosy faces bending over pale ones, the smile passing on from the one and settling on the other, to hear the sudden peals of laughter, and to notice the respectful delight with which the small sick creature, nothing envious, would touch and pat the soft coat or pretty dress of the sleek and well-cared-for little stranger, who had come in all the sunshine of his or her prosperity to make a pleasant picture for poor dulled eyes, and to give a taste of human sympathy to sad little half-starved hearts.

NELL:

A STORY OF KILLOWEN POINT.

BY ROSA MULHOLLAND,

AUTHOR OF "THE WICKED WOODS OF TOBEREEVIL," &c.

CHAPTER IV.

IS IT JACK OR NOT?

NELL offered a chair to the lady, and asked her to be seated. The lady sat down, and, after a glance round the kitchen, fixed her gaze upon Nell, who was standing modestly before her, wondering what she could want.

"You are the coastguard's daughter ?"

"Yes."

"Your name is Nell ?"

"Yes."

Nell, while waiting for another question, glanced at the quivering feathers on the lady's bonnet and the tapping toe of her elegant boot. The lady was evidently agitated in her mind, but though her nervousness might have been catching to an equal, yet Nell, feeling herself completely out of the sphere of her sympathies, only appreciated that she was distressed, and was sorry for her.

"So you are the young woman who has bewitched my son and brought sorrow into my home?" continued the lady, with a gasp that

was almost a sob.

"Oh, no! No, indeed!" cried Nell, indignantly, scarcely crediting her ears. 'Madam, I do not know what you mean." Mrs. Flamborough was a lady, if a nervous one, and, making a great effort to control herself, she remained silent for some moments, and then asked for a glass of water. Nell waited on her readily, pitying the poor thing, whom she suspected to be astray in her mind. When the stranger spoke again, it was quite in a different strain. "My good girl," she said, "sit down and talk to me.

You are

a pretty girl and modest-looking, and I can well imagine that you might be found lovable by anyone."

“Thank you, madam; you are very good," said Nell.

are not quite fitted for the position of a gentleman's wife."

"But still, you must own, you will perhaps feel, yourself, that you

"Madam, I am

engaged to a sailor, and I have not the least wish

to know anything of gentlemen."

"Engaged to a sailor-then he has not undeceived you ?"

Nell, drawn up to her full height, felt that she had said enough,

and waited to hear more.

As he has

not done it, I must do it myself. The person you

imagine to be your sailor lover is Mr. Edward Flamborough, my son."

VOL. IV.

Nell started and flushed, as if she had got a blow; then, recovering from the shock, she flung off even the supposition of the truth of what had been said. It was ridiculous, impossible. She, at least, was in her senses, and she refused to believe it. The shock, however, roused her into assuming her ordinary manner, which had been quite blotted out by politeness to her extraordinary visitor.

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Na, na," said she, "you will not get Nell to believe nonsense like that. Jack is Jack, and a sailor since he was a boy, though a wee bit Englified, I own to you, and come of very respectable people." "You stupid girl, I tell you he is my son."

Nell put her head on one side in a reflective attitude, her little fingers passed wanderingly over her own fair, round forehead, while she glanced from under her thick curled eyelashes at the wrinkled and irritated brow of the lady.

"You live over beyond Rostrevor, I believe ?" said Nell, "and Jack lived four months among us here. Did a lad in a dark suit of sailor's clothes go visiting you much in the winter time, madam ?"

"I tell you, child, that I will force you to listen to me. I came here for a purpose, and I will not go away till it is fulfilled. Four or five months ago my son, who was then in England, left it in company with a sailor, his foster-brother, a man named Peter Dunne. It was his fancy to dress like a sailor and pass for one; and as a sailor he took up his dwelling here. I believe he called himself Jack; and I also believe that he asked you to marry him. Now have I made myself clear to you ?"

Nell was now as white as a lily, and silently she kept her eyes fixed on Mrs. Flamborough's face, as she listened to all the startling words and weighed them and tried to take them in.

"It is a strange story, ma'am," she said, at last, "most like what you would read in them London journals that Father M'Shane does be preaching so much against. But he always told us that the things they tell about there are not like real life, and are all made up out of clever people's heads. I don't rightly see how the truth can be in it, ma'am, but I'll think it over if you like; and I'll send you word when I have made up my mind."

"You are a very obstinate girl," said Mrs. Flamborough, angrily. "Na," said Nell, "at least, maybe I am; but it's not that that's workin' me now. I like Jack-I like him well-an' if so be, he is a gentleman, and came here to make a fool of me, he's a bad man!— and it comes heavy on a poor girl's heart."

"Young men will be foolish and thoughtless, without being bad," said the mother. "It is for a girl like you to perceive how to regulate her conduct. You must send him word that you release him from his engagement. He is so honorable that he will not draw back from it unless you give him up, although common sense points out to him the folly of carrying it through. You wear a ring that he has given you. If you are an honest and right-minded girl, you will give me that ring to return to him."

At the last words a bright flame suddenly shone out in Nell's pale cheek.

"Na," she said, "I did not steal the ring, that I should be told to give it up out of rightfulness. One put it where it is that gave it to me, and till that one asks it back with his own lips it shall never leave its place at the bidding of mortal tongue. I tell you, madam, that, though I'm no lady, I know what it is to be loved by an honest man's heart; an' if he be not honest I'll have nothing to do with him, man or gentleman, whichever he may be. Let him come to me and speak to me, an' tell me what he is; and then I'll know what he means, and I'll know what I mean myself."

"He is too kind-hearted to venture on such a scene," said Mrs. Flamborough.

"I'll not trouble him much," said Nell, haughtily. "He needn't be afraid to say what he has to say to me. An' now, ma'am, if you be pleased to go away, I'll just think the matter over: and if any change comes into my mind I'll send you word."

Mrs. Flamborough, though anxious to continue the struggle, felt that she could not do so without insulting the proud distress of the poor girl, and so she took herself away with much the same feelings (to her own great surprise) which she would have expected to experience had her errand been to a lady. And Nell shut close the door that was seldom shut, and sat down to think over the news she had heard.

Why should this lady come telling her such a story if it were not true? This was the first thought that presented itself to Nell. Why, indeed, unless her mind might chance to be astray; and Nell had often heard that the Flamborough family had always been a little odd in their ways. She looked back over the few short months of her acquaintance with Jack, she remembered his sudden coming, Peter's comrade, who had sailed with him from Portsmouth in his ship. The lady had said he was Peter's foster-brother, and Nell could remember having heard that the young Mr. Flamborough had been nursed by Peter's mother, who had died long ago in her cottage on the mountain, in the neighbourhood of Rostrevor. Nell had never seen this young man, who had been educated in England; and, as she tried to picture him to herself, he would only appear to her imagination as a fine person riding a tall horse, this aspect of a gentleman being the only one tolerably familiar to her eyes.

She recalled Jack's face, and air, and manner, which, though marked by a certain superiority acknowledged by all, seemed yet to suit so exactly with the dress he had worn. Gay, and careless, and light-hearted as the breeze, he appeared to her mind's eye fit only to be that which he had declared himself to be-a sailor, born to live on the breaker and to laugh at the storm. How well he had often described to her his delight in such a life. Not Peter, nor any of the other seafaring men she had known, could describe it with such eloquence; and how, then, could any horse-riding, fine gentleman in the world have gained experience to enable him to act such a part. The more Nell dwelt upon the image of her absent sailor-lover, the more was she inclined to think that the Hon. Mrs. Flamborough must be mad. The poor lady had heard of the strange sailor who

had come wooing to Nell, and had somehow connected him with her absent son; for why, if her story were true, should that son not have come, to declare his own folly and put an end to it at once? “Oh, if Peter were only here, he could throw light on the matter at once !" thought the girl. But Peter was not there; and there was nothing to help her but the feverish discussions of her own warring thoughts. She came to the conclusion at last that she would keep to the declaration which she had made to her unwelcome visitor, and that, until Jack himself appeared to ask for a release, she would consider herself as engaged to him, and would continue to wear the ring he had given her. She would also keep her own counsel, and would not tell any one of the errand of her visitor, or the struggle through which she had passed. And having formed this resolution, she got up and opened her door again, and went lightly about her customary tasks.

But it would not do. For three days Nell strove to baffle anxiety and banish distress, but all the time her thoughts were straining towards that noble mansion away beyond the Rostrevor woods, under whose roof must, somehow and sometime, be unravelled the mystery which was stealing all the light out of her daily life. "If he were there, he would come," she thought, "so it is impossible he can be there. If I were there, I should know, by some signs, whether Jack is really Jack, or a dishonest gentleman. But what could I say, and what could I do, if I were once for all so bold as to bring myself there?"

The idea haunted her, and she could not get rid of it; and at last one morning she stepped into her own little boat and went paddling down the bay in the direction of Rostrevor; keeping close to the shore, so that she could see the limpid, golden sea welling round the brown burly stones of the beach with a gurgling and lapping kind of music of its own, bathing the greenish russet mosses, and the grey and silver lichens, and almost wetting the roots of the big unruly trees that, in spite of all that Time could do with them, refused to keep their place in the overhanging wood, and persisted in wandering down to the very verge of the shore. The misty purple of the opposite mountains fell backward softly into the fleecy sky, and allowed delicate margins of young pasturing green to wander waywardly seaward into the sunlight; pale blue crags, hung with golden fringes, looked out of the tender leafage of the wood overhead, and Nell's dark eyes took in the beauty of it absently as she steered her course towards the sleepy, smiling distance above the foot of the bay, where lovely outlines of filmy emerald and glittering gold carried their dream-like colours into the clouds.

She moored her boat in a lonely nook under the trees, and turning her back upon it took her way up the beach and into the wood, striking out upon a skyward path that would lead her, if not to heaven, at least to the mossy walls and fantastic gates, the gardens and vineries, the pleasaunce and park, the turretted chimneys and balustraded doorway of one of the most noble and fairy-like homesteads in the garden-wreathed hollows of the hill country of Rostrevor. Here, amidst flowers, and sunshine, and singing birds, in the very