II.

A YOUNG HERO.

THE front avenue at Finn Hill was a sombre place on the brightest summer day: the rows of gigantic fir-trees at either side of the carriage drive, with their huge, red, flaky stems, and dark crowns that reminded you of plumes upon a hearse, gave an air of gloom and mystery to the spot, in spite of the sunshine which lay in golden lines across the path between the trees, lighting up many a cushion of moss and ivy, spangled over with speedwell and wood-sorrel.

Very few carriages ever drew up before the rambling old house at the end of the avenue. Mr. Fitzpatrick hated society. He had been a shy, somewhat misanthropical young man, too indolent to bring people round him from a distance, or even to cultivate the few county families thinly scattered over the neighbourhood at five, eight, or twelve miles distance from Finn Hill.

His wife had been an invalid from the time of her youngest child's birth-too suffering to care to combat his misanthropy-so the Fitzpatricks had gradually slipped out of people's regard, and except Mr. Oliver, the Drummonds, the O'Haras, and the poor at their gates, few knew them, or cared to know about them. Of the four sons, two had emigrated to Australia, and two were in India: they had escaped from their father's authority as early as they could. The two daughters, Geraldine and Lucy, were the youngest of the family. Both were quiet, lady-like girls, with slender figures, grey eyes, and fair hair. We see them first on the evening of Mr. Sinclair's expected arrival, under very favourable auspices.

Geraldine, the brightest in looks and manner, had just returned from Dublin engaged to Captain Cecil Sinclair, a handsome young officer, possessed of some private means.

They were to be married in a few days, and could as yet hardly realise the blissful promise of the future. Lucy Fitzpatrick was almost as happy as the young lovers: she was glad that such joy had come to beautify her sister's life; for Geraldine had already begun to weary of the seclusion in which they lived at Finn Hill.

She hoped her dear sister would lead a pleasant, stirring existence, and was quite sure she would make troops of friends; that she was but Geraldine's pale shadow she knew well. Gerry's eyes were much bluer, her cheeks rosier, her skin fairer, and her hair more abundant.

Such castles as Lucy built were all for Geraldine's occupancy

But the pleasurable emotions that brightened Lucy's pale cheeks, and made her less grave than usual, were not altogether caused by Geraldine's good fortune. Her father's ward, James Galbraith, lately arrived from college for the long vacation, was walking beside her up and down the fir-tree avenue. Finn Hill had been his home as long as he could remember, and Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatrick and the two girls had stood to him in the place of parents and sisters.

He loved the sisters, and always came home to them with a zest that had been yearly increasing ever since he and they had given up building huts in the wood, and running races on the lawn, and had commenced the more advanced pleasures of erecting castles in the air, or discussing the merits of favourite books.

Mr. Fitzpatrick called the lad priggish and unmanly, and laughed at him for liking the girls' company better than shooting and fishing.

The old gentleman had a mean opinion of books.

"His money might have pushed him on in life," he used to complain to Mrs. Fitzpatrick; "but there, the foolish fellow goes frittering it away on folly. Do you know what he did with that twenty pounds he asked me for the other day? He laid it out on books. Ah, you stare! He did, by my soul! Every penny of it! The Latin Fathers' at a pound a volume. Stuff and rubbish! Mark me, that boy will end ignominiously by being a curate."

"Very foolish of him, indeed, Henry," would Mrs. Fitzpatrick answer, raising her head languidly from her sofa-cushions. "He is wild about that library of his; but he will gain sense. Remember he is not quite one-and-twenty."

"He's a downright donkey?

"Oh! Henry, my dear, how can you? James has talent that must bring him into notice. He won't be a curate long." "Talent has he? I never could see it. He can talk fast enough. Your black coats are all good at that, but it's only talk. He hasn't an ounce of practical cleverness."

sup

Perhaps on the whole Mr. Fitzpatrick judged his ward more correctly than did the ladies of his family. His wife roused herself to take James's part on these occasions, and Geraldine ported her mother's arguments with eager words and kindling glances. Lucy alone was silent, but a tender smile played on her grave mouth, and a certain proud confidence lit up her face, for a belief in James's talent, wisdom, and loftiness of purpose was the very first article in her creed.

She felt perfectly contented as she paced up and down the firtree avenue that evening. For six weeks at least gloomy old Finn Hill would be the most charming spot on earth to her, and after

that-well!-there would be the books they had read together, his sayings to be thought over, and the excitement about his examination, the grand struggle for the two gold medals which he had set his heart on winning. She was too reserved to show all her pleasure either by word or manner, but James knew that he might talk of himself and his hopes without exhausting her patience or lessening her devotion.

His guardian was unsympathising, and rather despised college triumphs. Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Geraldine were indeed very affectionate and kind, but Lucy, his own firm ally, understood him so thoroughly, that perhaps he might be pardoned for his little egotism while she formed his sole audience."

He was describing his latest success as they paced up and down the avenue.

"When we got out of the hall, a lot of the fellows came congratulating, and wondering how I could stick to work so closely as to take first honours three times running. I put them off by saying, 'I may just as well work hard as idle hard, you know.' But I didn't tell the whole truth about my reading, Lucy."

"And what would the whole truth have been?"

"Why, that I have a friend who is always encouraging me to do my best."

"You might say two friends, James, for I'm sure Geraldine has always encouraged you to work."

"I did not mean Geraldine. I thought only of you. You have helped me more than I can say. True, that Geraldine might spirit a man up to anything, and I dare say she will make Sinclair do just what she pleases.'

"She will fire her knight with ardour for the combat, and clasp on his armour when he goes forth to fight the battles of his country," said Lucy, laughing.

"And you-you will send your knight forth to bloodless victories-victories to be won by the pen and by the brain."

"Yes," said Lucy, in tones more earnest, stopping short in her walk, and looking full at her companion-"yes, James, you will be a soldier of the Cross. You will fight our Lord's battles."

She spoke with enthusiasm-enthusiasm called forth by a feeling which was more deeply seated in her breast than any earthly love.

"That's true, Lucy. I am to be Christ's soldier, and I trust I shall be a good one. Won't you always encourage me to fight His battles. Promise that you will help me forward as long as we both live."

"Yes," replied she, gravely, "I shall try to help you as long as we both live.

They paced up and down the avenue in silence. Both young faces looked more thoughtful than faces that have seen but twenty years usually do.

James, the more versatile of the two, was the first to recover himself.

"Next November will be the grand pull, Lucy; it'll be stiff work reading for the medals."

"But well worth the labour, James; for I suppose nothing will seem difficult to you after that. I should dearly like to go through the ethical course with you. What scholarly sermons you will write by-and-bye."

"Shall they be like Mr. Oliver's?" asked he, smiling.

"If you teach and preach as well as Mr. Oliver, I shall be satisfied, but you must not try to copy any one; you are sure to strike out a line for yourself."

"Mary O'Hara would advise me to emulate Mr. Oliver's perfections, social, moral, and intellectual; so would your mother, and Miss Allen, and every lady except yourself within a circuit of ten miles."

"I prefer you as you are," she said, simply.

"And yours is the approval I covet!"

The family party spent their evenings in the dining-room, a very large apartment, built by some old Fitzpatrick who had been neither misanthropical nor stingy, for the purpose of entertaining the county, and many a boisterous revel had taken place in it in former days, when the short-waisted ladies and powdered gentlemen who now looked down from the walls were in the flesh.

These portraits, hanging so closely together that the paper was almost entirely hidden, gave the room a quaint, gloomy look.

Among the male Fitzpatricks there were officers in the army and navy, and old country squires, some of them wearing a discontented and peevish air, like the present owner of Finn Hill. Among their female companions were blooming faces resembling Geraldine's, and delicate complexions like Lucy's, but the prevailing expression of all was one of great gravity.

James Galbraith used to wonder why they all looked so sad, and amused himself and the girls by inventing a history more or less romantic for each of the family portraits. Geraldine told him he need not trouble himself to search for any other reason than the fate which had placed Finn Hill in the parish of Ballyshandra, at the foot of frowning mountains, and shrouded it in trees. She declared that she was stifled, and if Cecil Sinclair had not appeared upon the scene, must soon have put an end to herself from sheer

ennui.

But Mr. Fitzpatrick would as readily have chopped off a finger

as sacrificed one of his cherished fir-trees, and the only glimpse of the outer world was to be had from the great bay window in the dining-room, which looked through a clearing in the plantation, and commanded a view of the hills.

Here our quartet placed their whist-table every evening. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatrick played chess. They rarely spoke, but listened with an amused smile to the conversation of the young people.

Geraldine and Cecil were always partners, and James and Lucy. The sisters looked very cool and charming in their high white muslin dresses and blue ribbons. Their silver-toned laughter was pleasant to hear as they talked over the events of the day, extracting amusement from their humdrum surroundings because they were happy, and their hopes were bright.

"I say, Geraldine," began Captain Sinclair, as he shuffled the cards, "what would Mr. Oliver and those good old ladies think of us if they saw us settling ourselves to whist in this systematic way -preparing, in fact, to make a night of it?"

"Mary O'Hara would sigh gently over us, and Mr. Oliver would be sure to tell of the mischief he has known cards do; but Miss Allen would look on indulgently, and tell us how she used to play whist with the artillery officers from the fort, when she lived with her brother at Tullyogue. Poor Miss Georgie," continued she, laughing, "how glad she is of an opportunity of talking of those halcyon days!"

"We called there to-day, James, while you were shut up in the study," observed Lucy. "Cecil had to return George O'Hara's call, so we drove over."

"Eh? You took him to the Dovecote, Miss Geraldine?" asked her father.

"Did he see the talc drawings that a gentleman' brought Miss Georgie from India?" inquired James.

"Yes, yes!" laughed both the girls.

"Did he see Mary O'Hara's sketch-book, with Mr. Oliver in his surplice?"

"Far better than that, he saw Mr. Oliver himself. Mary met him at the school, and inveigled him home with her, under pretence of wanting to learn the Greek alphabet."

"No pretence," interrupted Lucy. "Poor Mary studies with might and main. I saw it in her face the other evening, when he said, 'Women ought to know something of the classics, if only to fit them to be intelligent listeners while men are conversing;' so Mary is bent on fitting herself to be an intelligent listener." "Lucy, sarcastic and severe !"

Lucy coloured a little.