"CATCH me waiting-that's all!" exclaimed Mary Basset, while pulling out the strings of her bonnet-" Catch me waiting, Ellen-there, put a pin in the back of my handkerchief—will you ?"

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"La, Mary!" replied Ellen, glancing slyly over her shoulder at the same moment, to note in the looking-glass the effect of her remark-"La, Mary, you are as particular as if you were a born old maid."

Mary coloured a brilliant crimson, and attempted to stick a needle instead of a pin in the front of the said handkerchief, and then laughed at her blunder; but the laugh was not her natural one; and Ellen, instead of joining in it, sighed, for she saw her sister was agitated, and unhappy.

"Do wait, Mary," she said. "You are always so hasty and impatient that you do not give yourself time to think."

"But I have plenty of time to feel," replied Mary. "I hope you will allow that, and I do not mean to suffer my feelings to be interfered with by anybody."

Ellen made no comment on this illtempered speech; but as she wrapped her sister in her mantle, Mary saw that her eyes were filled with tears. Now, be it remembered that Mary Bassett was a warm, careless, Irish girl, and be it also borne in mind that the warmth and carelessness of an Irish girl are warmth and carelessness of the very first class-that is to say, VOL. XII.

they are more warm and more careless than any other girls in the world; consequently Mary threw her arms round Ellen's neck, and burst into tears.

"Ellen-Ellen darlint, can you forgive your poor Mary? Ellen, you were always wise, and kind, and considerate; your mother's own child, Ellen, full up of goodness, while I have been ever and always wilful and spoilt-that is it, Ellen-spoilt by my kind father, by my cross aunt, and good-tempered uncle; and why, I don't know."

"I do," said Ellen, quietly-" look there;" and she pointed to the glass which reflected the faces of both sisters.

Mary was tall and graceful; her beaming forehead clustered over and about with long black silken tressesher eyes sparkling-her complexion glowing; and if a little pouting devil did occasionally take a mischievous perch on her lips, why the sooner he got away the more happy did every one seem to be; and in his absence he was seldom remembered. Ellen looked still more pale and still more dark than usual by the side of her brilliant sister. Constitutional delicacy, with its attendant thoughtfulness, had made her old, while her years were few-and never had the contrast appeared to her more striking than at that moment, when she pointed to her sister's glass.

"But you are more good thar

2 L

“If I am more just," said Ellen, hastily, "prove that you think so, and wait for Jasper a little, only a little longer."

"I wonder at you, Ellen-you are such a quiet, tame thing, you have no spirit; it is twenty minutes past the time-if he loved me"

"If he loved you, Mary," interrupted Ellen, he would not offend a kind employer, merely to prevent your walk from being delayed for half an hour. Remember how often you made him wait."

"Well, it's no use-go I will. I want to return early. I have a great deal to say to my aunt and my uncle Ben-and it is three good miles there."

"It is a long and a lonely road." "Well, Nel, you are a coward! Oh dear, I had almost forgot to take father's watch to tell the time." "Well, Mary, here it is-put it in your pocket."

"In my pocket," repeated Mary, laughing.

"No, I'll hang it on my beautiful chain (doesn't it look like rale goold?) round my neck, and stick it in my belt. So"

"Aunt Beck and uncle Bob will think you've lost your senses, Mary." "Aunt Beck likes to cut a figure herself sometimes, when she puts on her beaver hat, and her long-tailed habit, and comes to mass on the high pillion behind old Joe; and as to uncle Bob, the dear little friar thinks I'm an angel, and I return the compliment, by trying to think him a saint," replied Mary, laughing.

"And what shall I say to Jasper ?" Say-why that I'm gone; and you may add, as if from yourself, you know, Ellen, that he may come after me, if he likes-mind, I don't like, but if he likes! And now, good by."

Don't walk too fast, Mary," said Ellen, as her sister bounded over the threshold. And sure," continued the gentle girl, "I might have known that would only make her go the faster. How handsome she is! No wonder she's the joy of my father's heart, and the light of his eyes. There isn't a cleverer girl in the whole kingdom of Ulster. Jasper will go mad, so he

but now," concluded the gentle Ellen, "that she's gone, I'll have mine." And so she had, for she sat down to twill Mary's frills, and trim her Sunday bonnet, without bestowing a single thought on her own finery.

Mary and Ellen were the children of a half Irish, half Scotch farmer, whose ancestors had resided for many years near the populous and thriving city of Belfast. They had lost their mother at Ellen's birth-for Ellen, though the most wise, was younger than Mary by three years: and Jacob Bassett cherished (for a man) the extraordinary idea that the best way of making women happy was allowing them to do exactly as they liked. Mary used her privilege to the utmost. Ellen, whom nature had formed of more gentle and yielding materials, considered her sister in all things, and was perfectly oblivious of self. Mary Bassett had many lovers, of whom Jasper Collins was the most favoured; and, in accordance with her perverse disposition, consequently the worst treated. She liked to worry, and tease, and perplex him; and he was too much in love to oppose ber humour. With such a father, and such a sister, and such a sweetheart, and other flattering relatives, is it to be wondered that the frank, affectionate, impetuous girl was, in every sense of the word, at twenty, perfectly spoiled? I had almost forgotten that she was to inherit, jointly with Ellen, the possession of about seventy acres of finely cultivated land; for the peasants of the north of Ireland are gifted with much of the careful industry of their Scottish neighbours; and the farming abilities of old Bassett were recognised by all the gentry in the county. One would have supposed that such advantages, natural and acquired, would have driven jealousy out of the head and heart of the pretty maiden; but, without knowing it, she was fond of excitement, and fitful as a mountain

breeze. More than once did she look back on her path to see if Jasper was following; and if she did observe a shadow pass along the hill side, more than once did she exalt her voice to the highest pitch in the refrain of a ballad, hoping, "if it was Jasper," that he might be convinced by oral demonstration that she pursued her way joyously, and did not think of him.

On she went, along the beaten road -then over a furze-clad ditch, for the purpose of making what the Irish call a "short cut," but by which I have generally found they double the distance then down one of these green and sparkling valleys, which are never so green or so sparkling (to me, at least) as in my native land, a clear rill singing through its tangled way-now moving sedately along then breaking into fairy diamonds over the white grey stones which oppose its progress then spreading into many shreds of liquid silver, and circling some gigantic tuft of grass or overgrown rush and then uniting again into one mimic river.

As Mary stept along the green sward, her bravura, lulled into the whisper of a melody, which at last became altogether hushed, as if she felt the mingled music of the streamlet and the birds was sweeter than her own. It was the latter end of "harvest," as autumn is always called in Ireland, and the corn fields, on which Mary trod when she left the valley, shorn of their riches, looked bleak and barren to the eye. Stubble is always unpicturesque-but singularly so in Ireland, where it has not the relief afforded by the neat bright hedges of hawthorn and roses, which render our English landscape fresh and varied, even to the end of old "jolly October." "It is all well enough to this," murmured Mary, looking round-"and the hill, forebye the cut corn, is pleasant, summer or winter-but, save us! how dark is the hollow of the Redderbrae!"

Mary had climbed the hill in pursuance of her "short cut," and stood, when she paused on its summit, leaning over a projecting rock from which she had a perfect view of the glen beneath. Well might she call it "dark;" it was so: large masses of grey granite, of a sterile and burnt appearance, projected from the declivity, interspersed here and there with knots or clumps of furze; while beyond lay a deep, dark

marsh-bog it is called in its own neighbourhood-full of holes and pools of standing water. Unsightly as the district was, it had its times of beauty. In the spring and early summer, that dreary land looked like a dell of everliving blossoms, lichens, wild flax, waving rushes, several species of heather, fern, and a long snowy flower (I forget its name) luxuriated in the soft, warm soil; while thousands of migratory birds hovered over the knolls and reeds which sheltered their dappled It had its eggs, or chirping brood. legends also-some poetic-others but too true. Hundreds would swear that the hammer of the clureacawn reverberated through the bog; and many a "fine boy" had been lured by the sound to a mud bath instead of a crock of goold. The phooka led his wild pranks from the very spot where Mary stood-flitting, like the summer lightning, from crag to crag, and then far and away,

"O'er moss and o'er muir,"

no one knew where. There was, moreover, a small island of dazzling green, upon which grew a solitary and not ungraceful tree. Pretty it looked, by sunlight or moonlight-a solid and substantial emerald, where all else at that season seemed grey and barren; "and there," thought Mary, "they do say the good people gather on midsummer eve, and that the inside of it is hollowed into a palace fine enough for the King of France." But while Mary looked, a passing cloud cast its heavy shadow so as to darken even the fairy island: and if a poet had been there, he would have immortalized both the island and the cloud, and called forth, by the strong power of 'witching song, tears and smiles associated for ever, and a day after, with the dark glen of the Redderbrae. The realities of the locality would have sobered his romance, had he known that a woman had been murdered there some years before, and thrown into the sinking moss by an unknown hand. Her body would never have been found, but that a boy, driving two cows to a fair across this particular portion of the brae, found it impossible to make them proceed they stopped, snuffed the ground, pawing it with their hoofs, and moaning most piteously all the time. The lad returned to his home, mentioned the circumstance, and revisited the spot, accompanied by his father. The cattle were still in the