Nanse, the fortune-teller, who curtsied low when she saw that she was perceived, but preserved that respectful silence by which, with innate good sense or taste, the Irish peasantry evince the sense of the sorrows of their superiors, when they feel that they are beyond human consolation. Associated as this woman was with some of the most painful recollections of her past life, Ellen naturally felt shocked upon recognising her; but she was too sorely inured to little trials of this kind not to overcome them; she therefore, upon recovering herself, enquired of the woman the cause of her being so late about the house.

"Pickin' a few herebs about the orchard I was, Miss Ellen," was the reply," for a poor girl that's not very well. I was just goin' away when I saw you, an' I made bould to come over an' ax afther your health; an' proud I am to see you sittin' there lookin'"-but she dared not finish the hollow flattery.

"What is the matter with the girl?"

"Wisha, Miss, nothin' but downright frettin'; she was married last Shroff was a twelvemonth; but I'm loth to keep you in the damp, Miss; the dew is very entirely to night, and you're not very sthrong."

"I don't mind it," said Ellen swerving from the blow, and making an effort to be resolute. "Who did she marry?"

"A boy of the Donoghues, Miss ; an' the match didn't turn out well at all, at all."

"Why?" persevered Miss Nugent.

"Sorrow-a-one o' me knows," replied Nanse; " but they don't live together their people came betune 'em, I b'lieve they used to say he was wild, an' all that; but sare, at any rate, that's no reason for separatin' man an' wife afther being married before the althar."

Ellen's heart died within her; she enquired no further, but bid the woman a scarcely audible good-night.

"The best o' good-nights an' blessin's, Miss," said the herbalist, about to depart; but pausing, she added, "I b'lieve that masther is not at home tonight, Miss; I saw him go yonder the road this mornin', as if for the fair of Nenagh."

"My father is not at home; did you want him?"

"Oh geh! no Miss; good-night, an' luck attend you."

"Mother of Him whom you watched upon the cross through the long and killing night!" murmured the distracted girl, when again alone, "look down upon me with pity; you, whose sinless soul was wrung with more than mortal agony, teach a helpless and erring creature to struggle with the lot that is wearing her to the grave!" and she raised her eyes to the brightening stars. When she dropped them again, Lawlor was standing close to her; his very breath almost mingling with the rich shadows of her hair. One frantic shriek, as she sprang with an electric shiver from the spot, gushed to her lips; but, with an instinctive sense of the result, she stifled it ere it passed them, and with a groan sank upon her knees before the window, her hands in vain motioning the intruder to depart. "Ellen," he murmured, "Ellen, hear me!"

She made no reply, but remained bent in an attitude of supplication and dismay, until she perceived him attempting to enter the apartment; with a stifled sob she rushed forward and essayed to close the window against him.

"Very well," he said, "it is a matter of indifference to me; for you and for your love I have become what I amI have lost them both, and life is intolerable; here, then, I remain until I am observed and given up to justice."

"No, no!" she almost shrieked, "do not drive me to distractionwretched, sinful, outcast man, what have I done to deserve this trial?"

"Ellen, my life, my bride, hear me ! the world and all its prizes-pleasure, wealth, fair fame, are to me henceforward what they are to the dead.

I had long ceased to value them; one thing alone, your affection, bound me to earth; that, that is gone too, this terrible hour convinces

me.

What, then, have I to dread?No; here I remain-let me die at least within the air you breathe."

"Madman! will you kill me?Every path about the house is beset by armed men thirsting for your blood."

"I know it, Ellen, yet I have ven

tured, and dared them all. Oh, darling! what have I not dared, in this world and the next, to be for ever within sight of the beauty from which I am debarred for ever? Yet one hour with you, only one hour, Ellen, if it were but once in the long dreary year, and I could bear to live.'

66

May God assist me!" cried the frenzied girl." Oh, Hugh! live-live to repent what has come between us, and left us blackened and withered wretches upon God's fair world."

"Give me one sign, one proof then, Ellen," said the impassioned criminal, "that you still have not lost all the fond love you so often vowed me; let me clasp you once more to this breaking heart, and, degraded and branded

as I am, I will be more boundlessly happy than thrones could make me out of your sight. Say that you disclaim me, that I am not your husband, wedded in the sight of that church you reverence so deeply; shut me out from your presence, all of heaven I have long dared to hope for, and give me up to a shameful death; or afford me one hour's shelter in peace and rapture by your side-May I enter?"

The hush of midnight had long been on the earth; the broad round summer moon had risen and filled it with mellow light, and was fast hastening to her setting, when a strong party of police, headed by their officer, and accompanied by the nearest magistrate, Major Walker, turned rapidly from the main road and proceeded up the avenue that led to Barna. They were within a short distance of the mansion, when the foremost man of the party stumbled, and nearly fell over the recumbent figure of some person whom the excessive darkness, occasioned by the thick foliage that overhung the pathway, had until that moment prevented him from perceiving.

"Who is here!" exclaimed the man, as he grasped the figure, which had now assumed an upright posture, presenting the outline of a very tall female enveloped from head to foot in the dark blue cloaks worn by her class in Munster. "Who and what are you?"

"Wisha! only poor Nanse the fortune-teller-a-ragal! was the reply, and the cloak was thrown open, and an apron exhibited filled with a goodly collection of herbs.

"(Go on, Corporal White, with four men to the house, and keep guard upon the windows until we join you ;) and is not this a pretty hour for you to be here?" said the officer, "and about no good either, I warrant."

"Never fear that, sir," rejoined a policeman; "no time will do Nanse but one o'clock o' moonlight nights to

There was no reply-he sprang through the window and extended his arms-shuddering, she recoiled from him, but only for an instant-with one broken gasp she darted forward and fell senseless on his bosom.

pick her herbs for pishoges an' charms, an' all that."

"Wisha, God bless you, Tim Kiely! you were always pleasant-let a poor woman be goin', captain.”

"Not till you answer one question how long have you been here?" "Faiks, an' a good while, your honour; I was for a bit o' the time in the orchard."

"Did you observe any one come or go this way? or meet a stranger about the house to-night?"

66 Haith an' I did so I won't be telling you a lie at this hour in the mornin'!"

"Who, who? what kind of person?" "Yeh! who would it be but HIM ye're lookin' for-don't I know well what ye're about?"

"Where is he then?-Out with it, woman, at once - every minute is worth a guinea."

"If it is then, captain jewel, wouldn't you be afther sharing with a poor creature? Pay me well," she said, lowering her voice," an' I'll tell ye somethin' worth knowing."

"Speak it out, and I promise you you shall be rewarded," said Major Walker—“ Do you know any thing of Lawlor?"

"How much o' the four hundred will I get, Major?"

"Never mind the woman!" said the ; come on, Walker, we lose

officer time."

66

"Well," exclaimed Nanse," I depend upon twenty pound at leasttwenty goold sov'rens.-I saw Lawlor this blessed night."

of its assailants rose in proportion to the resistance it presented to their efforts to break it open; nor was it until a full half hour had elapsed, and a temporary battering train had been procured from the nearest forge, that the party, amidst the yelling of dogs and the piercing shrieks of women, at last effected an entrance.

"Coward!" said the officer, "he might have struck one fair blow for his life, at all events."

Lights were procured, and every apartment was instantly visited At one alone they met a fresh delay. It was the chamber, the servants said, of their young mistress. To this the officer himself proceeded: the door was made fast-he imperatively knocked for entrance, but receiving no reply, he directed it to be forced. But even here, when the slight door had given way, the entrance was blocked up; the whole furniture of the apartment, in cluding a heavy old-fashioned bedstead (upon which the lovely inmate of the chamber was wont to repose) being piled across it.

The police, however, soon scrambled through these impediments; the lights were brought forward, and gave

The delicate constitution of Ellen Nugent never recovered the repeated shocks of that trying and terrible night. On awaking from the long swoon into which she had not fallen until the loud knocking of the police for admission assured her of the escape of Lawlor, she was seized with fever and delirium, which threatened for several days a fatal termination. During this time she raved incessantly about her unhappy husband, whom she seemed to see constantly by her side, and to whose imaginary entreaties, that she would fly with him to some foreign land, she an swered with expressions of the most impassioned devotion. Sometimes she fancied she beheld him in the hands of justice, and prayed and supplicated to be allowed to watch his fate and share his grave. Her disorder, however, yielded to the skill of the physicians reason again assumed its control-and she once more became rigidly silent respecting the name and the affection for which her heart was breaking. As the lovely autumnal season of her native island set in with unusual mildness, it

to view the fainting form of Ellen Nugent stretched upon the floor, supported by a female servant, who, apparently unconscious of, or unconcerned at the scene before her, was occupied in chafing the burning temples of her mistress. But the room contained no one else; and the disappointed party were about to retire, when one of them perceived, by the chinks in a partition, that a narrow closet was attached to the room he eagerly rushed to it, opened it, and dragged forward, wrapped in an immense fearnought coat and slouched hat-Nanse the fortune-teller.

It were vain to attempt describing the scene that followed.

"Take this woman," said Major Walker, "and make out her committal, as an accomplice after the deed"

"With all my heart!" cried Nanse "there is many a mile between the poor fellow and you now Major; and so you thought I was goin' to sell the blood of him I often an' often nursed upon my knee in his father's kitchen-God rest his sowl! No-if he war twenty times the unfortunat' he is!"

was hoped that with care her health would be re-established; but when winter came, symptoms of consumption

-a disease that had already been fatal to more than one of her family-appeared, and it was evident that her days were numbered. The sweet patient herself was the first to feel the conviction; and the smile of satisfied resignation and thankfulness with which she received its confirmation from the lips of the physician, showed that Hope-that last seed to wither in the hearts of the young and gentlehad long perished in hers." What have I to do with earth and earthly things?" she said; " my poor old father will not long stay after me, when he misses his spoiled Ellen from his lonely hearth-and then we will sleep together in the same quiet grave, and I shall know what it is to be at peace at last." Winter passed away-the faint perfumes of the early flowers of spring arose from the neglected garden; and ere they had disappeared, one more frail and fair than they was gathered to the dust. Her grave lies in the old

churchyard of Abbeymahon; its soft turf is ever bright and green, though the rude letters on the stone by her gentle head are fast becoming ille gible :

PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF

ELLEN

ONLY DAUGHTER OF DAVID NUGENT

OF BARNA,

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 2D DAY OF APRIL 1821, aged ninetEEN YEARS."

*

It was the third morning after her interment that Tom Bush entered the guard-room of the police barrack at Capparue, where he had for many months been obliged to reside for that protection which such a place alone could afford in Tipperary to an informer -of all miscreants the most odious in the eyes of its turbulent and fierce spirited peasantry. He had occasionally, for the purpose upon which his revengeful spirit was bent, been permitted to make excursions through the country in the disguise of a mendicant that generally assumed by his degraded profession-carefully contriving to conceal the great defect by which he was rendered so notorious, beneath his manifold and ragged habiliments, and which he was enabled to do the more securely as he mostly travelled in the night, skulking along deserted roads and other by places, in his visits to those remote mountain fastnesses where he thought there was any likelihood of furthering the object he had in view.

"Well, boys!" he exclaimed, in an exulting tone, as he entered the room -around the ample fireplace of which several of the men were crowded-and proceeded to divest himself of his soiled and tattered outside garments, exhibiting all the appearance of having that moment returned from a long and weary journey," Well, boys, I have him at last!"

The men, with a simultaneous impulse, jumped up, eagerly enquiring, "Where where?

"Never mind, I'm jest cum from the chief *—he knows all about it, an' he'll be over here directly-only let ye be ready against nightfall. We'll have a long journey to go, an' the

sooner we get to the end of it afore the moon rises, the better."

Further than this, Bush would not be communicative.

Early in the evening, the men comprising the little force stationed at Capparue, headed by their officer, and under the guidance of Bush, set out upon the excursion. By their starting so early, it was evident their destination was a distant one. They were reinforced, as they proceeded, by the men at two stations in advance on their route. As night darkened, the party no longer confined themselves to the main roads of the country, but struck forward on those which led to the mountains by the least circuitous routes. This, however, rendered their journey tedious and fatiguing, and would have made it, without the escort of a guide, an impracticable one, from the nature of the country to be traversed. The paths, for the most part, lay through swampy moorland, and not unfrequently across vast tracts of bog, where all traces of a footway disappeared; and where, without the aid of one thoroughly acquainted with the way, a single step to the right or left would have buried the whole party in the deep watery slough that spread far and wide around. It had rained heavily on the preceding day, which served still the more to impede their exertions, and a sharp spring frost, which was setting in, made the slowness of their progress doubly irksome. length they crossed the chain of wild hills that divides the county of Tipperary, on the south, from that of Cork; but, despite of all their efforts, the moon had long risen above the stupendous range of the Galty mountains

At

through which their road now wound before they came in sight of the spot which their officer at length informed them was to be the termination of their march-the churchyard of Abbeymahon. They could see it plainly at a considerable distance—the ruined tower of the Abbey, and the grey walls by which it was surrounded, crowning the summit of a lonely hill directly before them, and glancing white in the broadening moon.

On approaching the place they halted; and Bush, motioning them to preserve unbroken silence, crept stealthily