said the elder of the matrons, with the air of one who had been caught in the performance of a virtuous deed.

'An' then Maggie would have us come on the Doneraile,' said Mrs. Kennedy, taking up the thread of the conversation, and looking at Farrell meaningly as she spoke.

Though one would think she had enough of air all day, for she was in Waterford shopping an' going about,' said Mrs. Casey, looking at her daughter with a glance of mingled affection and pride.

I'll

'Ho, ho!' said the priest. engage she saw somebody there she liked better than herself;' and he laughed as if he had made the best joke in the world.

'Never a wan, now, Father O'Keeffe, nor you needn't be thinking that neither,' said Mrs. Casey, answering for her daughter, who stood as mute as if the conversation was about some one in whom she had no possible interest.

'Young Butler, the corn-merchant, was coming back in the train with her,' said Mrs. Kennedy, 'an' sure there's no truth in the report that he's going to be married to the widow at 'tall at 'tall; so he told Maggie, at any rate.'

This was said for Farrell's benefit, by way of rousing any latent feelings of jealousy he might pos

sess.

'Well,' said Father O'Keeffe, 'I'm told he's looking after some girl in Limerick that has a strong fortune; an' I'm inclined to believe it's true, for he's just the fellow that's fond of the money.'

'Small blame to him for that, if he can get it,' answered Mrs. Casey, pursing up her lips.

They had been standing in the centre of the walk up to this time, but now, by common consent, they made a movement onwards; Far

rell and Miss Casey first, the priest and the two matrons following. The ladies were not a little proud of their reverend chaperon; to walk with such a good-looking popular priest, that fifty others would be glad to have with them, in the face of all their acquaintance and friends, was a social triumph that they indeed appreciated to its full worth. Mrs. Casey was especially pleased and grateful to him for bringing his nephew and her daughter together; 'an' who knows what may happen to-night?' she thought; 'he has only to say the word, an' she's his.'

Inflated with the importance of the prospect, she gave an additional sweep to her gown, and held her head a couple of inches higher than was her wont.

The object of such tender hopes was a pale-faced lighthaired girl, with mild blue eyes and regular features, from which all expression seemed to have faded out. Her manners, like her appearance-for manners are wonderfully like appearances were subdued. Her voice was thin and weak, her character pliant as a reed, her knowledge of the world nil.

She was a direct contrast, Farrell thought, to little Nellie Blaney, who was by turns petulant and vivacious, clever and saucy, warm-hearted and impulsive. But Nell hadn't a penny fortune, and this girl had a dowry of ten hundred pounds; and money he must have. His reverend uncle had told him, as they dined together that day, that his marriage with Miss Casey would be 'the making of him,' and that it was not every young man who had such a ready opportunity of placing four figures at the credit side of his banking account; and of course the priest was right.

It was never difficult for Farrell to make love; he could always find something pleasant to say to women; and they always believed the airy nothings which he uttered, merely from an almost unconscious trick he had of lowering his voice suddenly when he came to certain phrases, and speaking them with an inflection meant to indicate far more than was expressed. Yet it was not quite so easy to get on smoothly in the conversational channel with this girl as he had found it with others. She was shy and reserved. She made no response to his best efforts, and never gave him a word of encouragement, as others more skilled in the art of flirtation did; then there were many things that he would say quite freely to such a girl as Nellie Blaney, which he was afraid this young lady might think too pronounced or too demonstrative.

However, he had great confidence in himself and his powers of fascination, and by no means despaired of making an impression on this fair possessor of such a desirable dowry.

The crush was so great on the promenade, he said, he was afraid. they would get parted unless she took his arm; and when she had complied, and laid her fingers ever so lightly on his coat-sleeve, he complained that it was so uncomfortable getting pushed about, and suggested that they had better go on a little way, beyond where the promenade properly ended, to the pathway overhanging the cliffs just wide enough for two persons to walk abreast. This, after a slight hesitation and a backward glance at her mother, the young lady complied with. Mrs. Casey saw her daughter and Dr. Farrell arm-inarm move towards the path by the cliffs with a keen sense of satisfaction in her maternal heart; she nudged her sister with her elbow

meaningly, and then followed the retreating figures with her eyes.

'Really, I'm tired,' she said. 'We passed a vacant bench; let us go back and sit down,' suggested Father O'Keeffe.

'I have been on me limbs all day, an' I'm not as active as I used to be,' she said apologetically.

When they reached the seat there was only room for two, and the priest, seeking an opportunity for escape, rather quickly called to mind that he must see some old friends who had just passed, and left them, promising to return again; he intended to do so-if he found it convenient. When the two matrons were seated they soon became interested in watching those who passed them; they knew many of them personally, and most of them by reputation. After a while a group of three girls went by armin arm, with quick light tread, in one of whom Mrs. Casey became instantly interested.

'There she is, the bold hussy, with two of them cracked Burkes from Kilkenny; shure they are all a match.'

The bold hussy' was Nellie Blaney, her daughter's rival, whom she now looked on with no lenient eyes.

'She's in search of Pat Farrell, as shure as a gun,' continued Mrs. Casey; 'an' them as are with her are just as bad: it's the quare bringing up they got, I'm thinking.'

'Well, they do carry on great airs, anyhow,' added the second matron; but they got an ellegant edecation, an' they sing wonderful well.'

'Ay, they leave the windows of their lodgings up every night to show off, an' then they sing until all hours, keeping the neighbours awake, an' making them start up in their second dreams with their shouts for it's shouting I call it,

an' no mistake,' said Mrs. Casey in fine scorn.

'Well, I don't know that, now,' the other lady responded. 'I listened to them meself one night, under the window, an' I thought it grand.'

'That's you all over, Mary; you always make little o' your own; I never heard you say as much for your own niece yet-never!'

Musha, Catherine, have sense; how could I say that same for Maggie, when she has nera voice, though you paid a fine "extra" to the convent to get her one?'

That I did,' said the elder lady, somewhat pacified, 'an' shure 'twas only throwing away money; not that I'm going to complain o' the will o' God, as Mother St. John says to me, in respect to a few pounds, anyhow. But as for them Burkes, it's little good their edecation will do 'em; there's five of 'em in it, an' not a penny fortune between 'em to bless themselves with; an' shure their father was only a bank-clerk a few years ago, though he's a manager now, me dear.'

'Well, they say young Dalton, the 'torney's son, is after one of 'em.'

'So he may, but never a fear of his ever putting the ring on her finger, take me word for it; shure the ould 'torney himself is the greatest money-hunter in the county; an' besides, he's a Protesdant, an' a real rank one too.'

'Well, the Burkes go about enough, anyhow, in search of husbands; an' they have a fine house taken for six weeks, as Father O'Keeffe himself told me, on Belle View Terrace.'

'Shure the priest was too charitable to tell you why,' said Mrs. Casey, assuming an air of mystery. 'Why?' said Mrs. Kennedy eagerly.

'Well, the family that had it at end of last season had the scarla

VOL. XXXI.

tina there-God save the hearers!an' one of 'em died there; so no one would take the house this year until the Burkes came, an' shure they got it for next to nothing.'

Whilst the matrons are resting themselves, Farrell and Miss Casey had strolled along by the cliffs until they came to that part of the pathway which is protected by a wall about three feet high, over which they leaned to look down at the little bay, formed by two sheltering rocks below, into which the waves surged languidly, spending their strength upon the glittering sands. Far out the sea lay placid as a lake, in which the moonlight was mirrored like a pillar of gold.

Farrell thought that the hour and scene were most appropriate to the declaration which he intended making, and commenced some remark about the orbed maiden with white fire laden,' a subject from which he would pass to highwrought sentiment, that in turn would, he intended, lead on to words of love. Miss Casey listened to him complacently; she had received due instructions from her mother, and expected to hear him propose every moment. When, however, Farrell had got as far as the sentimental stage of his conversation, and whilst his face was close to that of his companion, he was startled by a loud laugh from some one close behind him, followed by two minor peals, which might be more fitly described as titters, from two respective voices. He looked suddenly around, and saw three young girls hurrying by, with a shuffling springing gait that almost approached a run. moment Farrell recognised the centre figure, and somehow all disposition to make further love that night came to an end. He watched them until they were out of sight, and then proposed to Miss Casey - that they should return.

II

In a

The three girls hastened away, suddenly crossed an open field, got on to the road beyond, and went back to the town without returning by the Doneraile. They seemed in high good-humour, especially Nellie, who laughed again and again long after the inclination for such enjoyment had departed from her companions. She had

overheard a sentence that Farrell had addressed to Miss Casey, and it kept ringing again and again in her ears, and with its every repetition came the hysterical laugh that shook her frame and made the tears gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks.

When they reached the town, one of the Miss Burkes proposed that they should go to the terminus to see the last train start for Waterford.

'Come, we'll have some fun, maybe,' she said persuasively; 'the Powers are sure to be there, and we'll tell them about Pat Farrell. We'll be just in time if we hurry.'

Without waiting for the consent of her companions she hurried them down the hill, and all three, yet arm-in-arm, arrived at the terminus-door breathless. Seeing the last train off was one of the great attractions of the night. As the three girls entered, the platform was crowded, the murmur of highpitched voices almost deafening, the struggle of the passengers to get seated laughable; the whole scene was one of boisterous confusion. Nellie Blaney and her friends fell in with the crowd, which moved regularly up one side of the platform and down the other; the train was not to start yet for ten minutes. There were many friends in the throng whom they knew, but they passed them all in their search for their friends the Powers, who were famous gossips, and to whom the Miss Burkes were anxious to reveal what they had just seen.

At last they saw them at some distance ahead in the crowd, and, disengaging themselves from their neighbours before and behind, the Miss Burkes made a rush for them, drawing Nellie in their wake. With a considerable amount of elbowing they at last got a place in the liv ing stream, when the eldest Miss Burke called out,

'O Angela, do you know what?' 'Yes; we just heard it from Father O'Keeffe himself. You are too late with the news.'

'What news?' asked the original questioner, somewhat surprised.

Why, that Dr. Farrell is going to be married to Miss Casey; she has a thousand pounds fortune, and it's all settled.'

Nellie Blaney gave a sudden sharp cry.

What ails you?' asked one of her friends.

'Nothing,' she answered, recovering herself quickly; 'some one trod on my foot.'

astir; invalids were being wheeled to the baths; a group of children with wooden spades marched boldly to the sands, holding a council as to their future work on their way, and a few bathers passed to and fro.

Amongst the latter came Nellie Blaney, looking pale and somewhat altered since yesterday: her eyes seemed larger from the dark circles under them, which had been traced there by a sleepless night and a troubled heart. She carried a mysterious bundle of drapery under her arm, and went with slow steps towards the bathing-place set aside for her sex Half-way down the street she encountered one of the bathing-women, who, putting her arms akimbo, addressed her in a drawling voice:

'God bless your purty face, miss; an' it's me heart is wake this marning. I've been working sin' six o'clock; an' maybe you'd give poor Mary Bulger the price o' the tay.'

Nellie smiled. She knew 'the tay' meant a stronger stimulant, whose name was not mentioned out of respect to sober prejudice. The woman's petticoat was dripping wet, her legs and feet were bare, and her face assumed an almost ridiculously pathetic look, which the girl could not resist; so she handed her sixpence.

'O, thin, long life to you, anyhow, miss; and shure it's glad we're all to see you come to Thramore. Much good may it do you. An' sure it's looking out for you we always bees from the first o' the sayson; an' we hope it's some fine young gentleman you'll get, me honey, afore long, with plenty o' money i' the bank.'

The woman kept up this string of phrases until she saw her patroness fairly out of sight; then she turned to the nearest public-house, and demanded 'a glass o' the best to raise me heart.'

A quarter of an hour later, and a group of bathers and bathingwomen, who had been drawn together by some common feeling of fear, were looking seaward, where a dark object apparently floated on the water.

'Maybe an' there's no danger, plase God,' said Mary Bolger; 'but I wish, for all that, she'd come in.' 'Is it Miss Blaney ?' asked one of the bathers.

'I think it's that same young lady, ma'am,' answered another woman, 'for her clothes are there in that box; an' I wish she'd come in, anyhow. It's never safe going out so far-God between us an' all danger!-an' the thought of any one coming to trouble puts the heart across in me-that it does so.'

At this remark they all gazed seaward again, straining their sight to make out the movements of the object before them, all being evidently uneasy. No one spoke for a minute or two; then Mary Bolger broke the silence and the powerful strain that held them:

'She's coming in, an' it's herself is the fine swimmer, thank God !'

Every one now breathed more freely; but there was yet some fascination in watching the figure making its way amongst the waves, from which they could not turn. No one spoke for a while; the swimmer came by degrees nearer and nearer to the shore, making her way, it seemed to those who watched her closely, slowly and with some difficulty. Suddenly one of the women gave a scream. Nellie Blaney had sunk under the waves. A thrill of pain shot through the hearts of those on the beach, but no word was spoken. The swimmer rose again after a pause that seemed the length of an hour, made an effort to strike out her arms; but her strength was already too far spent by the long swim,