dairy-woman's cottage, passing her off as a relative of Danny Mann's. She retired at once and Hardress and Kyrle sat talking together of Anne Chute. The sight of his friend's sufferings won Hardress's sympathies. He protested his disbelief in the idea of another attachment, and recommended perseverance.

"Trust everything to me," he said. "For your sake I will take some pains to become better known to this extraordinary girl, and you may depend on it you shall not suffer in my good report."

When the household was asleep, Hardress went to his wife's room, and found her troubled because of the strangeness of their circumstances.

"I was thinking," she said, "what a heart-break it would be to my father if anyone put it into his head that the case was worse than it is. No more would be wanting, but just a little word on a scrap of paper, to let him know that he needn't be uneasy, and he'd know all in time."

The suggestion appeared to jar against the young husband's inclinations. He replied that if she wished he would return with her to her home, and declare the marriage.

"If you are determined on certainly destroying our happiness," he continued, "your will shall be dearer to me than fortune or friends. If you have a father to feel for you, you will not forget, my love, that I have a mother whom I love as tenderly, and whose feelings deserve some consideration."

He took her hand and pressed it in a soothing manner.

"Come, dry those sweet eyes, while I tell you shortly what my plans shall be," he said.

"You have heard me speak of Danny Mann's sister, who lives on the side of the Purple Mountain, in the Gap of Dunlough? I have had two neat rooms fitted up for you in her cottage, and you can have books to read, and a little garden to amuse you, and a Kerry pony to ride over the mountains. In the meantimes I will steal a visit now and then to my mother, who spends the autumn in the neighbourhood. I will gradually let her into my secret, and obtain her forgiveness. I am certain she will not withhold it. I shall then present you to her. She will commend your modesty and gentleness; we will send for your father, and then where is the tongue that shall venture to wag against the fame of Eily Cregan!"

The young man left her, a little chagrined at her apparent slowness in appreciating his noble condescension. In his boyhood he had 

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