was the wonder of a village, was no meet rival for the excellence schooled, disciplined, and matured within a city's teeming sphere. A self-humiliating truth like this was slow to force itself upon his mind, and reluctantly received, when it had gained admission there. Three years he lived upon the fruits of that economy which a thrifty parent had sedulously practised for the space of thirty; though subsidiary means were now and then derived from his professional labours, such subsidies were rare and scanty. The last remnant of the legacy vanished ere long. Then came the bitterness of hope deferred, the incessant but inoperative struggles of a mind inadequately framed to wrestle with the difficulties which pressed upon his path,the gradual demolition of every anticipation most desperately clung to and most inveterately cherished,the slow approaches of inevitable penury,-the progressive relinquishment of little luxuries at first, and then of comforts, and then of actual necessaries. By all these gradations-step by step-the lowest deep of poverty was painfully attained. But even this, which bore down hope and health before it, the hideously palpable reality which rose up in place of all the pleasant visions shaped with such ease, and abandoned with such reluctance and regret,-even this was powerless to vanquish pride. And hence the brother he had rivalled, but in whose love he still maintained a place, was kept profoundly ignorant of the clouds which now were settling down so heavily upon the patronless artist's prospects.

What the wife felt, and never uttered-submitted to and never murmured; how patiently she toiled, and never spoke of weariness, -suffered in heart and mind, and yet could wear a smile,-could still whisper en

couragement, still caress, and never weep but when alone, would be a painful speculation, and yet not profitless. If the heroism of the poor, the noble, the enduring fortitude of woman, more especially in her severest trials, her most intense distress, were chronicled-ay, simply noted down in all their naked truth, -those chronicles would glorify our common nature, and put to shame the glowing narratives in which historians too studiously have sought to embalm and perpetuate the madness, the folly and the lust of many of the misnamed heroic, and many of the misnamed great.

now

We wander from the thread of our discourse, which assumes a gloomier texture. Poor Summers declined apace-forbade all application to his brother -sickened-grew hopelessly delirious-waned with the waning season-and "perished in his pride!" At such a juncture, it became imperative upon the part of Lucy to inform the brother of her loss, and this she did, not without some trepidation and misgivings. When the intelligence was thus broken to him, he neither raved, nor tore his hair in agony, nor would permit the paroxysms of an ineffectual grief to have the mastery of his mind. Mourn for the dead he did, unquestionably, and laid his brother's ashes in a grave beside his father's, with such solemnity and undissimulated sorrow as testified the earnestness with which, at heart, he loved him. But the living had their claims upon his sympathy; and with a delicacy that was strangely blended with the naturally frank and warm-hearted manner in which his kindnesses were generally performed, he proceeded to provide a home for the widow and the orphan of his brother.

he entered with an almost boyish zealousness, to make it habitable,—to furnish it according to the fancied tastes of Lucy,-to call to mind the predilections which he remembered her to have expressed when but a laughter-loving maiden, whom it seemed impossible that calamity could ever touch, to carry there the high-backed, velvet-cushioned, oaken chair (a family heir-loom) in which she used sometimes to sit, and bid the brothers jestingly kneel down and pay their sovereign mistress fealty,-to add, besides, some favourite ornaments of antique rarity, that at the same time had attracted her regard,-to till the garden, clear the walks, plant its neglected beds with flowers, prune the redundant branches of the vines and fruit trees; and, in fine, to make it what was, and is,-an enviable haven for the shelter and security of one, upon whose gentle nature the tempests of the world had early and in rapid sequence spent their shocks.

It would have done your heart good to have seen John Summers thus employed, and afterwards to have witnessed the glow of honest pride which mantled on his comely visage when he led the widow and her orphan thither, and when he heard her falter forth her approbation and her gratitude. And if in very thankfulness she gave the feelings of her full heart vent in

a copious flood of tears,-and if John's eyes grew likewise moist, and if his voice wavered like a girl's, when he assured her he would ever be to her a brother,—and if he felt uncomfortably awkward-he knew not how -in the contemplation of the happiness he had effected, and could only answer in reply to frequent thanks, "God bless you both!" and wondered how his eyes could be so dazzled by the sunshine, and pressed the little one until his tiny hand was almost flattened in his uncle's grasp,-surely on such occasion it was only natural.

Why prolong the narrative? Is not John Summers still the landlord of the "Royal Oak," a substantial man in purse and person-still a bachelor, and, in redemption of his promise, a brother to the widow? Is not the artist's relict a tenant of that pretty cottage near the church? And is not her handsome son the very image of his ill-starred father, excepting that his mind is rather moulded in the fashion of his gentle mother's?

Fortune has prospered both; and a competence bequeathed to Lucy by a distant relative of her mother's, enables her now to mitigate with liberal hand the sorrows and distress of which she herself has felt the weight and known the bitterness. J. S.

AN old moss-covered, clay-built cottage, near to the little road that winds round the base of the celebrated Mullaghmast, in the county Kildare, was, many long years ago, the residence of the widow Fitzgerald and her only daughter. Though the widow was "poor and miserably old," with merely the possession of the wretched cabin and " а small bit of a garden," she still boasted a high descent. Her constant theme from the rising to the setting of the sun, was descanting on the nobility and the antiquity of her family and connexions, tracing them, upon her husband's part, to that chief of the name, who came into Ireland with the first chivalric band of iron-clad Anglo-Normans, and, on her own side, to the Irish Vesta, the famed Saint Bridget of the burning shrine, a princess of the high heroic Milesian race; until her daughter's head was fairly turned, listening to the long drawn-out and oft-repeated tales of the grandeur and glory of her ancestors. The maiden was called Winifred, after some one of the ancient and canonized virgins.

"You know, Inny," she would say in Irish, "that although poverty like a dark cloud has settled on us, yet it cannot blacken the brightness of the clear-flowing stream; riches, like the sun, may gild the barren moor with its noon-tide beams, but it cannot illuminate the muddy slough. So hold your head high, child of my burning love, nor stoop to mingle with the clown and the churl."

dove-like eye, glossy raven hair, a delicate blush, and a gentle retiring mien. The high and unsuitable notions instilled into her mind by her mother had their usual evil effect; for thus schooled by the foolish old woman, she never condescended to learn any useful art, and seldom stirred from morning to night to perform any necessary office about their little home. She spent the most part of her time in reading whatever books she could procure or borrow amongst the neighbouring peasantry, and these were mostly of such character, that they only served to stimulate those wild and romantic sentiments already imparted by her mother. When the girls of the other cottages would be busily employed spinning, sewing, or knitting, Inny might be seen sitting in the sun at her cabin door, beside her mother, reading the wonderful adventures of Parismus, Parismenes, and Parismenides, Hero and Leander, Dorastus and Faunia, (from which Shakespeare has drawn the "Winter's Evening Tale,") the notorious Don Bellianis of Greece, the redoubtable deeds of the Seven Champions of Christendom, and the life and career of the renowned Redmond O'Hanlon, the hero robber chief of Ireland. The simple dame with open mouth devoured these olden legions of giants, enchanters, and ladies fair, which she believed as firm as faith in Gospel truth; and the girl, though half a sceptic, had her fancy so filled with heroes, knights, ruffians, and queens in distress, that they constantly floated in her day dreams and filled her visions of the night.

In this shadowy world she passed the beginning of her days, and many a peasant lad who sought to win her love had but to nurse his disappointed hopes as

M

the reward of his ambition. She spoke in a strain which none of them could well understand; and they told their tale in a style so different from that in which the Green Knight poured forth his passion at the feet of the bright Colberta, that she could not avoid turning away quite shocked and disappointed. However, with coming years we gradually emerge from the twilight of youth and romance into the glaring day of care and reality. Our valleys lie no longer beneath the magic mist of fancy, nor our mountains tinged with the golden hues of the imagination, for one side soon begins to look drear and lonely, and the other steep and sterile.

In this state of dreamy, unprofitable existence a few brief summers passed away; and when at length the old woman, feeling her strength decline, could not help thinking how desolate her child would be when she was no more, she then regretted that Inny had not listened to some of the honest youths, who, though so much beneath her in birth, were yet so far above her in worldly consideration.

“When I am gone, Inny, darling," she would cry in unavailing regret, "who will then care for the desolate orphan? who will give the friendless bread to eat? -and, misery to think on it! that one of such a race should fall so low,-you cannot earn a morsel for your self, it is useless to expect assistance from our friends -for since your father fell into decay, and was taken away from us, the shadow of one of them never darkened my threshold. Oh! what will become of the solitary bird of my widowed nest, when I am no more?"

Although Inny keenly saw all the horrors of her situation in perspective, yet, with a daughter's true filial devotion, she turned from their contemplation to sooth the distress of her mother.

"Do not fret about me, mother," she would say ; "God, you know, always protects his own; and how often have we read of the good and innocent being rescued by His mercy from worse even than povertyfrom shame and the shadow of death?"

It was one fervid day in the middle of summer, as Inny was preparing their frugal meal under the direction of her now almost helpless mother, that a young man with a large pack on his back entered the cottage.

"God save all here!" said he, seating himself, and placing his pack before him on the ground-"Well, but it is a warm day, and weary to be carrying such a load; and the heat has made me as weak as water without whiskey."

He was a handsome, agreeable young fellow, with a free address and an ardent eye; and appeared to belong to that class known by the name of pedlars or travelling merchants. He entered into conversation with the widow and her daughter, and was evidently attracted by the bearing and manners of the latter; while, with the tact of his trade, he opened out his bundle before her, and displayed its hidden finery to her wondering eyes. "See there," said he, "there's a stuff fit for the Countess of Kildare, and I am sure it would suit your complexion to a hair, ma colleen dhas (my pretty girl); would you like it?”

"And if it is fit for the Countess," replied the old woman, still catching at her favourite theme," my daughter, poor as she is, might not think it too fine for her wearing,-her blood is as noble as any that

flows in the veins of either Countess or Earl-she is of the same race.'

"I could swear she was above the common," said the ready and flattering pedlar; "a body might look a long time before he'd meet with such an eye and an air among the bodachs' (churls) daughters about the moat."

"Aye, aye," responded the dame, "the sun is the sun, let the day be winter or summer."

"But look at this," resumed the pedlar, turning to Inny," there's a scarf that a princess might wear on a birth-night;" and he turned and exhibited it in dif ferent lights.

"It is beautiful indeed," remarked Inny with a sigh, after feasting her eyes upon its bright shadowings, leaving it back upon the heap."

There's velvet for a coif," said he again, opening out a piece of rich murrey-coloured cloth, "real Genoa -what a beautiful contrast!" and rolling it into a kind of hood he placed it over her dark ringlets,—“ but such hair does not want it," he added, throwing it aside,-"'twere a pity to confine those tresses or to shade that brow."

"It is too rich for me entirely, or the like of me," said Inny, still gazing on the finery with an anxious eye.

"Would you like the stuff?" said the pedlar. "You shall have it a full groat in the ell less than any other in the county; take it-I know you would make it look so well that I'd sell nothing else for the season."

"I would like it," sighed Inny; "but if a single groat would purchase your whole pack, I haven't it at present."

"Well, if you haven't it now, you may another time, and to show you I am a different sort of trader from my brethren of the pack and the worn wand, you shall have the dress until you can make the money by your spinning or knitting; and I promise besides, not to hurry you," replied the pedlar.

"No," said Inny, "I could not think of taking what I couldn't pay for ;" and she felt the full force of the young man's remark and her want of industry.

"Since the decent young man is so good," interfered the mother, "you might take his offer, and we could pay him from time to time."

"Come, keep it and welcome," said he; "I know it pleases your fancy, and it will never be said that Maurice O'Moore denied a garment to a handsome girl of gentle blood, because she didn't carry the coin on the end of her finger."

Inny was persuaded to keep the stuff and scarf, and in the spirit of grateful hospitality she detained the merchant to partake of their repast. He gazed delightedly on the gentle Inny; he thought there was an extraordinary grace in her every action, and he imagined that he never tasted so sweet a morsel as that prepared and set before him by her fair hands, so that by the time the meal was concluded he had drunk deep of the tender passion.

"Now," said he, "a sweet Colleen like you must have a heap of sweethearts; but when you appearin that elegant dress, the numbers that will follow you will be beyond countin','twill make you look like a queen.”

"Poor Inny," replied the mother, "has always taken my advice; for though poor, we considered ourselves above the people about us,-she has no sweethearts."

"You were right," remarked the merchant; "for springing from a good old stock myself, I vowed never to take a wife unless I could meet with something above the mean-minded. I never considered money an object; but wished to have one genteel and industrious, with whom I could share my heart, and enjoy my earnings in love and happiness." This was spoken with a view of finding out was the pretty Inny engaged, and of showing the mother that he was a prize worth attaining; as he found, when he rose to depart, he should leave his heart behind him.

The generous and gallant pedlar became the subject of praise to both mother and daughter; and many a secret prayer did the old woman put up to Heaven, that such a man might be destined as the companion of her beloved child; and often did Inny dwell upon the open, yet courteous and flattering turn of his manners. She soon procured knitting-needles, and prevailed on one of the cottage girls to teach her how "to mount," and begin a stocking; and when Maurice O'Moore called again, she had thrown aside Parismus and Parismanes, and was busy over the shining wires. She blushed in pleasurable confusion as he entered, and cast her work aside, that he might not observe her awkwardness. His visits grew frequent, and their object became very unequivocal. He made her presents,

was attentive, delicate, and, what all women like better still, he was assiduous; he wooed, and won her, and they were married. She loved him tenderly and sincerely, and bent her wish and will to please him in every particular, and they were happy.

The honey-moon was scarcely over, when he made up his pack to depart on an expedition of traffic, leaving a wish, as travelling rapidly wears hose, that Inny would have some new stockings knitted for him by his

return.

She did not now know what to do-she had led him to believe, through the instigation of her mother, that she was a miracle of industry, and could do every thing becoming to and necessary in a wife; she could not bear that he should think unworthily of her. She wept incessantly; and though she commenced knitting a stocking, in the vain hope of doing something, yet she could not see to move the needles, for the blinding tears that constantly filled her eyes. Often would she retire to the little garden, to indulge her griefs alone; and day after day passed away in unavailing sorrow, until she almost wished she was dead before her husband came back, to find that the wife he prided in and loved so much, could not or would not comply with his first request.

One evening, as she sat in her little garden summer

sunk, far apart, and ever shifting and restless, twinkling and moving from side to side with involuntary flashings, like the flames of two tapers exposed to the winds on a dark night. The colour of his face was of a glistening, greenish, sickly, reptile-like yellow, drawn and puckered into an infinity of cross lines and wrinkles. His nose was flat, and his mouth enormously large, with long white protruding and fangish teeth; and round his chin was scattered, at broken intervals, a fringe of red coarse, bristly hair; while a shock of the same colour covered his head, but stood up from the skin, and streamed from it as dead-like as if it had not found root upon the mis-shapen skull. He glared up at Inny, and forgetting the grief that was at her heart, she shuddered before the malignity of his glance. grinned spitefully as he spoke,

He

"Ah! then, how do you do this evening, Inny O'Moore?-is it not a great shame for you to make your eyes so red, crying, and your husband coming home to-morrow?"

To-morrow!" repeated Inny, in fear and won

Aye, indeed, to-morrow, Inny O'Moore," said he again, and his voice was deep and hollow. "Tomorrow! yes, yes, you are a fine wife for an industrious poor man !"

"Oh! what will become of me?-what will I do?" cried Inny, weeping afresh, and forgetting everything, in the fear and shame of meeting her husband.

"I'll tell you what you'll do," replied the little man; " and if you take my advice, you will yet be a happy

woman."

"Oh! tell me tell me, and I'll pray for a blessing on your head, night and morning. I'll pray to

"I don't want your prayers or your blessings," said he, interrupting her;" but I wish to do you a service in your need, and it's in my power."

"Then what am I to do at all?" said she.

"I'll soon tell you, Inny O'Moore," he replied, "and you have not much time to spare in thinking." She bent forward with eager anxiety.-" Aye, listen to me attentively; now these are the conditions:-you must promise to be mine, and to come with me on this day come seven years, unless you can tell my name between this and that day; and on every day, from this to that, I will knit for you, and give to you, seven pairs of stockings.'

She paused;" Seven pairs of stockings," she repeated-"every day for seven years; and then, unless I tell your name, I must be yours and go along with you."

"That's the very thing, Inny," said he; "are you willing?"

"Who are you, or what are you, at all?" she asked, in astonishment.

"No matter who I am, or what I am. I can do what I say, Winifred O'Moore," he answered; "will you take my offer and be happy?-refuse it, and you are miserable."

"Oh! sure I don't know you," she said, shuddering as she contemplated the being who asked her to be his; "and you make me tremble looking on you. Yet my heart is breaking."

"You should have thought of this before," said the spiteful looking elf-" before you deceived a trusting man. What will he say to his wasteful wife?-To

morrow!"

"I can never meet him-Oh! I wish the earth would open, and devour me," she cried, passionately.

"Then take my offer. I promise you riches, honours, and the smiles and love of your husband, if you take it but poverty, reproach, and shame, if you refuse," he urged, with a vindictive earnestness.

"Won't you tell me where you live, at least, that I may guess at who you are?" And as she asked the question she weighed the proposal, and her mind was wavering.

"You know the place well," he answered. "I live near the old moat of Mullaghmast, Inny O'Moore. Often I watched you in the evening sun, when you were but a child, fair daughter of the race of the stranger,"and his voice quivered, and assumed an unearthly solemnity.

She now traced the proposal and the proposer mentally; there was a power in his voice and manner that fearfully impelled her to accept the proffered compact, yet she shrunk in fear and disgust from a contact with such demoniac deformity; still she equally dreaded to meet and brave the anger and resentment of a deceived and disappointed husband. "Riches and honours," thought she; "poverty and shame, love and contempt; seven years was a long time to look forward to-the ugly dwarf might die, or she herself might die before the time expired; and if it came to the worst at last, it was but boldly breaking the contract, and defying him." The ungainly animal seemed to read her thoughts, for his deep, hoarse, cackling laugh startled her from her reverie. She looked

-his fiery, restless eyes were throwing flitting, yet piercing glances over her face; and a malignant grin twisted itself in and about the folds of his terrific mouth.

"I now make you my offer for the last time, Winifred O'Moore," said he; "I can't be wasting my favours on the thankless, or the ungrateful. Choose your fate at once--be happy, or miserable, for ever!" She paused, looked hesitatingly, but did not reply. "I cannot remain with you longer," he continued. 'Farewell, unfortunate Winifred O'Moore,"—and he turned to depart. Impelled by a sudden impulse, she stretched her hands to him-he receded like a shadow from her touch.

"I agree I agree!" said she. "I will either tell your name, or be yours at the end of seven years, and do what you promised-make me happy!"

She

"It is well," he answered-" you shall be happy ; -I am pledged—and thus I put my mark on you,' -and, stooping down, he plucked a tall stalk of the beautiful grass called "fairy flax," and drawing its powdery, seedy head through his hand, so as to separate it from the stem, he threw it in her face. put up her hand to wipe away the dusty pollard, but when she looked about her again, the mysterious being was not to be seen. A low, fiendish laugh, half stifled as from the other side of the hedge, broke upon her ear, but she was alone.

Sad and astonished she retired to her couch, and soon in broken slumbers dreamed away the cares and vexations of her overloaded heart. When she awoke, she was inclined to think the interview with the strange little man as a dream, until her eyes fell upon a heap of stockings, new, and neatly folded, and heard a hoarse, triumphant laugh outside her narrow, fourpaned window.