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Thought you were Katherine! Ha, ha! Excuse me, my dear, for I know you have cause to be jealous, and to stand on your dignity. But you need not with me, my dear, his poor anxious old mother. It is long since he gave up Miss Archbold, and fixed his affections upon you. Excuse me, for I know your devotion to him since, which has saved his precious life; but it was his love for you which threw him into this fever."

"Did he tell you so ?" asked May, knitting her brows.

Well, no," said Mrs. Lee, with a spasm of fear that she was going too far. "But do you think an anxious mother cannot read the heart of her son ?"

"Not at such a distance I should think, and without the help of a telescope," said May, with a little grim mirth.

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Ah, you are laughing at me," said Mrs. Lee, and her tears began to descend. “And I had so buoyed myself up with the hope that you, at least, would be merciful and kind to my dear son; so different from that other woman; that his future would be a sacred affair to you. And now-and Mrs. Lee wept.

now

"Pray don't cry, Mrs. Lee," said May, with a conscience-stricken feeling that she was behaving very inhospitably in thus distressing her tired guest. "I am sorry, indeed, to disappoint you, and I see you have deceived yourself in some strange way. I have great pity for your son; but you know I could not marry him for that reason; especially as he does not even want me."

"There it is! There it is!" cried Mrs. Lee. "I knew it was only proper feeling that was working your little heart. And can you really think that he does not wish to marry you? If you read his letter, his last letter, that heart-broken letter

May's temper and sense of humour both began to get lively.

"Mrs. Lee," she said, "I know it is very important that your son should be married before Friday."

"You do, you do!" cried Mrs. Lee, with increasing emotion. "My own frank, devoted girl! How bravely she comes to the point! I almost feared to remind her of it, but I need not have doubted her. She will throw herself into the breach. She will save us from ruin; be mistress of a manly heart and twenty thousand pounds a year!" 'But, Mrs. Lee"

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"I knew that she would do it, and, as she says, it must be done before next Friday. I thought about all this when I brought a parson with me in the coach. He did not object to the trip, on account of the shooting. I dropped him at a farmhouse about a mile away. A most respectable clergyman, but with his time not fully occupied.'

May could bear no more just at present. Her cheeks burned with indignation, and the corners of her mouth were twitching with laughter, yet she was so sorry all the while for mother and son, that she could not either laugh or fly in a passion with any comfort. Fortunately, Miss Martha came in search of her guest, allowing May to make her escape. And she heard nothing more about matrimony for that one night at least.

On the next day, however, it was plain that a campaign had been entered on by Mrs. Lee, which she meant to carry on with vigour till the hands of the clock should point to midnight on Friday. Christopher in his meekness and weakness had been talked to by his mother, and looked wist- '¦ fully at May, and even ventured to say to her that though he could not have dared to originate the proposal, seeing all that had passed, still, that she should never have reason to repent it, if she could bring herself to be so generous as to marry him. found it hard to be thus punished a second! time for a second of Katherine's sins. It was not hard to silence poor Christopher, but Mrs. Lee would not be put down; and the hardest part was that she had in some sort talked over Miss Martha to her side.

May

"Only think of what two young people could do with twenty thousand a year," she said. "And two such young people as they are, my dear ma'am. So well matched in youth, in appearance, in tastes! It is maddening to think of such a crisis coming near, when all might turn out so happily in one hour by the joining of their two dear hands."

Aunt Martha listened, and Aunt Martha

a

was fluttered. There was a great deal of truth in what Mrs. Lee was saying. She was smarting a little from Paul's indifference to her niece, and he was gone away and had disappointed her. She had no longer his interests to provide for. Neither did that stray duke, whose interference had once appeared so inevitable, seem to be on visiting terms at Camlough after all. And it might be a long time, indeed, before another fine young man with twenty thousand a year should come courting pretty May at Monasterlea. By-andbye, Aunt Martha faltered forth a conditional consent to Mrs. Lee's proposed plan. She would talk to her niece, and if the child could be persuaded, the marriage should take place.

May perceived this yielding of her aunt with dismay and resentment, and the ceremony of the talking over produced no satisfactory results. Miss Martha, on this occasion, found her sitting in the furthest corner of her room under the sloping wall,| with her hands locked in her lap, and her mouth tightened up into a straight line of determination.

"I know what you are coming to say, Aunt Martha," drawing still further back into her corner, but speaking loud and plain. "I never expected that you would go over to the enemy.

"The enemy, my darling? Indeed, there is no enemy. I am just going to ask you to think seriously of the thing. The young man is good and amiable, and will make an excellent husband. My May would be a lady, and could go and come when and where she liked."

"I don't want to go, nor to come," said May, "only to stay where I am." And she locked her feet together, as if in that identical corner she had resolved to live and die.

"I should no longer have any anxiety about providing for your future."

"Never mind that, Aunty. I can turn milkmaid any day."

"You shall not need; but what I mean to say is, that a good husband is a treasure not to be met with every week."

"But I don't want a good husband every week; nor any week; nor a bad one either. How nicely you have done without one yourself, Aunt Martha !"

"Oh, of course, if you desire to be an old maid," said Miss Martha.

"I do not desire it. I desire nothing of the kind. But I had rather put up with it, as you have done, Aunty, than sell myself, for even twenty thousand pounds a year."

"My dear, you never spoke to me in that way before. Nobody ever said yet that I 'put up with it.' I have always" "Now, now, Aunty," said May, springing from her corner at last, and putting her arms round the old lady's neck, “you know very well that you put up with it because you could not marry the person you liked; and I love you for doing it, and I mean to do the same."

"Do the same!" echoed Miss Martha, in astonishment. And then she saw that May's eyes were wet with tears.

The very same," said May, laughing. "And you must promise to say nothing more to me about this matter; but try to get Mrs. Lee to take her poor son away. It is quite time that we two old maids had this house to ourselves again.”

On Friday morning, as May walked down the garden path, a gentleman met her coming towards the house. He was dressed like a clergyman, but carried a gun. He took off his hat and introduced himself as a friend of Mrs. Lee, who had come by appointment to see that lady. May bade him welcome, and accompanied him to the house, knowing very well that here was the parson come to marry her. She conducted him to the parlour where Christopher was sitting, and did not think it advisable to awake Mrs. Lee, who had slept longer than usual, in consequence of much trouble and excitement, and many wakeful nights.

What passed between Christopher and the parson has never been recorded. After they had been for some time shut up together, May saw, from an upper window, the two men walking side by side down the path to the gate. Christopher was leaning on his stick, and walked slowly, and looked downcast but dignified. The parson was nodding his head and talking briskly, and as he went away shook hands a second time with Christopher over the gate. Then Mr. Lee returned slowly to the house.

Soon afterwards Mrs. Lee came to light, and held private converse with her son for half an hour. There were sounds of weeping from the parlour during this time, and at last Christopher led back his mother to the door of her own room, where she returned to bed, and would take comfort from no one. Miss Martha sat with Christopher the rest of the day, while May kept aloof, feeling like a culprit. In spite of all she knew to the contrary, it seemed as if she must be to blame for Christopher's mishap.

Towards evening she ventured to show her face in the parlour. Aunt Martha had left Mr. Lee to take a nap in his chair, but the young man was wide awake when May came stealing in. She brought him a vase of the latest flowers, including the very last rose of summer, as a needless peaceoffering, and a vain little temptation to make him glad. Christopher was not at war with her, but he could not be glad. He smiled over the flowers and thanked her for her trouble; and then he had a little more to say.

"I am sorry and ashamed of all the trouble you have had with us," he said. "It was a monstrous thing to torment you as my mother and I have done. I beg of you to forgive and forget what has passed. We shall leave you to-morrow, full of gratitude for all the kindness you have shown to a sick man; and by-and-bye I shall set to work and be a new creature. Will you give me your hand in token that we are friends ?"

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'Right willingly," said May, giving her hand and feeling sorely distressed. Christopher's eyes filled with tears, and he raised her fingers to his lips. While she thus stood beside him and he kissed her hand, there was a witness of this scene of forgiveness and farewell. The leaves fluttered at the window as a shadow came among them, and then quickly disappeared. Christopher saw nothing, for his face was turned from the window; but May had glanced up quickly and seen-Paul.

She snatched her hand from Christopher with a little cry. "What is it ?" he said, fearing he had offended her; but she said, "Oh, nothing!" and muttered something about the window, so that he thought she had seen a strolling beggar; but May was gone from the room before he could make up his mind. She nearly ran down Bridget, who was bringing in the tea-tray and the candles, and then stopped in the hall, and assured herself that she ought to go to her own room. What, hide in her own room when Paul was outside, hurrying away, never to come back any more! He had come at an unlucky moment, and had seen what might make him think that he need not come again. She wrung her hands in an agony of indecision, and finally flew down the passage to her own room.

But at the end of the passage there was an open door through which the moon was shining, and just hard by there lay on a bench a white apron belonging to Bridget, and a large woollen shawl of vivid colours, which the handmaiden was wont to wrap

round her head and shoulders. May seeing these, a merry idea sparkled up through all the troubles in her mischievous head. She tied on the apron, and threw the shawl over her head, wrapping it well about her face. She turned up her long dress and made the apron very conspicuous. Then she went out of the door, and set off running across the fields.

Paul, meanwhile, walking along the meadow path, stopped at the stile to take a last look at the moonlit ruins, and the cottage with the red lights in the windows, and thus caught sight of (apparently) Bridget coming running to overtake him, with her white apron flying, and her head and shoulders swathed up in the identical shawl which he, in his character of pediar, had bestowed on her. May was at that moment thinking also of the pedlar, and thinking delightedly that she was going to trick Paul as cleverly as Paul had once tricked her.

Oh, musha, sir!" she said, as she stopped, panting, beside him, and mimicking Bridget's voice, "but ye do step out fast an' sthrong! long life to yer honor! Sure the breath is gone from me wid the runnin'. An' the misthress waitin' the tay on yer honor; an' begs wid her compliments that ye will come back at wanst, sir, an' not go 'way in sich a hurry."

Paul's heart beat fast, and she could see him flush up in the moonlight. It seemed to him that this was adding insult to injury.

"I am much obliged to your mistress," he said, "but I could not think of intrud ing myself on the family at such a time." "Thin sich a what time, yer honor ?"

'Why at a time when you are prepar ing for a wedding," said Paul. "You will please take back my good wishes and farewell."

"Oh, but plase yer honor, the misthress'll not be satisfied wid that for an answer. An' the weddin's not to be till-to-morrow, said May, with a mischievous delight in tormenting him a little longer. "An' we're not so busy as ye think. She wants to see yersel'. She's despert anxious to see you;" emphasising Bridget's favourite word.

is

"So the wedding is to be to-morrow, it? Well, tell your mistress I congratulate the bride; and I certainly shall write to Miss Mourne-the elder lady, I meanbefore I sail from the country.'

"An' ye won't come back, sir?" said May, feeling blankly that she had gone too far in humouring his fancy about the wed ding.

"No, my good girl; and I am sorry for giving you so much trouble. You will take this little present from me to buy you a new dress."

May was dazed with her utter failure. She had just enough presence of mind to know that she ought to keep up the character she had assumed; she must ac, cept the money, and Bridget should be the richer for it. But May quite forgot that though she had borrowed Bridget's shawl, Bridget's hands were at home, and she held out a hand which was unmistakably her own, and which Paul knew as well as he knew her face. How could brown buxom Bridget give forth such a bit of snow into the moonlight?

"Then you are only trifling with this poor man and his wonderful fortune-just as you are trying to make a fool of me!"

The moonlight gleamed vividly a moment on a little white wrist and hand, as May tossed up her handful of thistle-down into the air; and then she turned suddenly round upon Paul. For one moment she looked the image of womanly indignation, and opened her lips to speak her mind in good earnest; but suddenly her mood changed. Without saying a word she threw Bridget's shawl once more over her head, dropped a prim curtsy to her unmanageable lover, and set off walking as fast as she could towards the house.

Upon this Paul regained his senses immediately, and found that he was not at all prepared to turn about and continue his way towards Australia, without further ex

"What does it mean ?" asked Paul.

"It means that Bridget wanted to thank the pedlar for her shawl," said May, dropping a curtsy. "That is all it means. An' now, plase, sir, shall Bridget take back your message to her misthress ?"

"I feel that I ought to be highly flattered by this mark of attention from Mr. Lee's bride," said Paul, with some scorn in his face, as he drew back a little, as if in disgust, from the very lovely figure which the moonlight shone upon.

"So it is," said May, plucking the thistle down that grew by the stile. "Barney Fagan and Judy Lynch are to be married in the morning. Tenants of Aunt Martha's. Bridget is to be bride's-maid." "Pshaw!" said Paul, impatiently, with a stamp of his foot. "Have not I spoken with the parson who was brought here especially from Dublin to perform a marriage at Monasterlea ?"

"Have you?" said May. "How simple you are, both you and he. It is only in romances that one hears of a wedding without the consent of the bride.'

terlea. His pain had made him rude, and at least he could not go without offering an apology. He started off to follow May, and, with a few swift strides, came to her side. May!" he cried fervently at her ear; but May tripped on, and did not appear to have heard any one speaking just at her back.

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"May!" he cried again. "Speak to me! You must not leave me in this way. You must give me some explanation of the things I have seen and the stories I have heard."

"She was spakin' to yer honor long enough," said May, talking over her shoulder as she still sped along. "As for me, I'm only Bridget, an' I'm goin' home wid my message."

"For Heaven's sake stop a momentBridget!" cried Paul.

"What have ye got to say to Bridget?" she said, slackening her pace a little.

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I want you to tell me something about your young mistress. Will you swear that she is not engaged to marry Mr. Christopher Lee ?"

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By my feth I will!"