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I gave her the message, and bade her deliver it very carefully, about the green-room and everything; because of oourse Lorna wouldn't have cared to see me, of all people. The maid replied cheerfully"Never fear!"-and tripped away.

It is an extraordinary reply that Irish maids seem inelined to give on all occasions.

I had hours to spare after dressing, and nothing to de but to look from my window at the motors coming up the avenue. I could see the headlights far away, and there was a dip where they were lost to view, and then came stretch of trees where the lights shone on dark fir-stems, which by day were rosy red. It occurred to me that this avenue which I thought so strange might one day be my most familiar outlook, and that the motors were bringing the people who would be my neighbours and-it was to be hoped-friends, our audience for this evening.

The idea sent me downstairs in excellent time, to find the green-room fairly humming; the actors evidently excited by the noise the audience made taking their seats in the hall and chattering. Eva, after all her excitement during the week, had turned as cool and collected as any professional, and was exhorting us not to be slow in taking up our oues.

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"Remember it's a one-act thing, and it ought to go fast, she said. "If we let it drag at all, they'll get bored. And now-my goodness! where is Lorna?"

She was not to be seen, No one had seen her.

"I must go and fetch her this minute," Eva declared, and sped up the stairs like a lamplighter.

Exactly at this juncture I was seized with stage-fright or whatever they call it, and began to shake like a leaf.

"All right!" said Hugo, seeing me subside in my chair.. "Now for the champagne! You'll be all right in two seconds."

And we all hastily drank the champagne which he had got ready at that psychological moment. In two seconds I was all right, and ready for the fray.

"I can feel mine coming on again, Hugo, real bad stagefright," said that idiotic Jim. "Would you recommend any more of the remedy?" And at that moment down came Eva, nearly breathless, and declaring

"It's all up. I couldn't see her. She wouldn't answer, Hugo, and her door was locked. Yes, locked. What does it mean? We'll have to give it all up. Oh, Hugo!"

"Here, drink this," commanded Hugo, in a businesslike way, handing her a glass of

champagne. "It means that she has been taken ill, I suppose. Who saw Miss Dare last?"

"The maid who brought her tea at six o'clock," I said. "It was Margaret. I spoke to her, and sent Eva's message."

"I must find Margaret," said Eva, and darted again.

She came back as swiftly, and caught Hugo by the arm.

"Margaret never saw her at all," she said despairingly. "She knooked at her door, and couldn't get an answer, and was afraid to go in, and she left the tray on the table outside the door, and went away because Judy or some one was calling her. I don't believe Lorna came back at all! I don't believe she is in the house! She has had an aocident"

"Eva, don't be an idiot," said Hugo. "She did come back, for she brought her horse back. Didn't I see him in the stable? and the men there said they had seen her go on to the house. If she were not in her room, how came the door to be looked? There, do you see?"

"But if she is up there fainting or incapable, or what ever is the matter with her, she can't act, and we can't act without her. It's all up with the play. You had better go out before the curtain and make some sort of apology to the audience."

Eva broke down. It was hard on her.

"Well, I'll wait till the time is up," said Hugo deoidedly. "It wants two minutes of the time still, before we ought to begin. Perhaps she will pull herself together, and come down. I don't believe she will fail us, if she can help it. Don't you remember how she promised to act this evening, whatever happened? Hold up, Eva! Get ready, all of you. . . . Now then, time is up."

My eyes were on the clock in the hall corner, with its silvery face shining out of a tall old case. As quietly as a shadow I saw Lorna Dare come quickly down the stairs, ready dressed for her part, all in black, with a long scarf about her.

She said nothing to us, gave a wave of her hand at the ciock, pointing to the time, and stepped on to the stage. The bell rang, and the curtain went up.

All the people in the hall wavered before my eyes. I had no idea before that moment moment how imposing an audience is. But I didn't lose my head, chiefly because I hadn't time to. We were right in the middle of the play before we seemed to have fairly begun.

I have a hazy idea that something was left out, near the beginning, but I'm not sure what. The others all seemed to me to be acting brilliantly. I haven't a notion how I did myself, but my voice was like that of a complete stranger, and my head was in a whirl. Lorna's voice sounded very strange to me too, and she looked deadly pale, but I didn't wonder at that. Hers was quite a small part, but she made it most effective, I thought.

The audience was the really unsatisfactory feature of the entertainment. I couldn't make out what was the matter with them. They stared, they whispered together, they rustled; then they got very quiet-in fact, stony. It is not pleasant to have an audience like that, it doesn't help you along.

Still we kept it up as well as we could, and there was not a single hitch from beginning to end. Except one: I remember now the lights went wrong, somehow. They got quite dim towards the end, and when we were called before the curtain, it seemed quite time to leave off. I don't believe that even Eva would have wanted to go on a moment longer.

It was odd how exhausted we all felt, and how cold, Then some one remarked that Miss Dare must be feeling more tired than any of us. We turned to ask her what made her so late in coming down?-and behold, she had vanished!

"Oh, come on!" said Eva. "We simply must look after her. Come with me, Jane, quick! before we have to talk to all the people."

We both ran upstairs, and tried to get into her room, but the door was fast. We called her and implored her, and not a word could we get in

answer.

"Eva," I said, "don't let there be any fuss, if you can help it. Go down and talk to everybody, and keep them amused. I'll find Hugo, and see what he says."

I found him, and what he said was

"The door must be opened at once. And my mother ought to see it done—and, look here, keep Eva away and come yourself. It's good luck that Dr Kennedy is here. I saw him in the audience. I'll

find him and bring him up at once."

"But the door, Hugo-?" "I'll tell James to see to

that.

Any one can open a door, you know." Presently Lady Fenton came upstairs, holding her husband's arm, and with her eyes fixed on his face. I remembered then that Lorna had told me Lady Fenton never came upstairs. Old James was already at the door, working at the look with a screw-driver or something, and looking furtively over his shoulder. I believe he was afraid that some of the maids would come down the passage, but he said not a word. Just as he got the door open I heard the steps of two men, Hugo and the old doctor whom he was bringing up. Hugo went away and took James with him.

The dootor was the first to go into the room. Sir Richard and Lady Fenton followed the doctor, and I followed them.

At first I could not see any one there. There were no candles lit, but on a table stood that shaded lamp which Lorna had used on the evening when she first looked at my hand. The doctor lifted the lamp and carried it to the bedside. On the bed lay a figure, very slim and stiff in outline, wearing riding things and boots.

The doctor bent over her and no one spoke.

Then he raised his head and said quietly

"She has been dead for some hours."

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SWIFT AND IRELAND.

BY J. A. STRAHAN,

A VISITOR to the Irish capital, if he has as part of his equipment the smallest supply of literature or romance, never fails to make a pilgrimage to St Patrick's Cathedral, in whose "holy precincts lie, Ashes that make it holier." If, after doing homage to the sacred sepulchre where lie buried for ever the unhappy loves of the furious dean and the gentle Stella, he traces his his way through the congery of squalid streets between the Cathedral and the Castle, he may, if he be fortunate, happen upon a wall containing a tablet which records that Hoey's Court, where the dean was born, once stood there.

If, having the aforesaid qualities in his equipment, he has already sought out, as he naturally would, the birthplaces of other sons of Dublin city even more famous than Swift, this memorial tablet will surprise him. He will have gone, for instance, to Ormond Quay, where Edmund Burke first 8&W the light. Judging by the decrepit condition of the houses there, it is more than likely that they were built before Burke's birth, and that one of them is the authentic building which witnessed that event; but there is no tablet to mark it. And he will have gone to seek and to find the birthplace of the Duke of Wellington. Mor

nington House stands straight and square in Upper Merrion Street; but there is no tablet on its walls to tell the casual passer that in that building was born the man who conquered the conqueror of half the world. Monuments no doubt have been erected to both these great among the greatest men-Foley's statue of Burke stands in the grounds of his old University, the ultraUnionist Trinity, and the "big milestone" to Wellington stands in the royal Phoenix Park. Though possibly originally of Norman blood, they were both of families born and bred for centuries in Ireland. Swift's father and mother were born in England, and he himself disdained the name of Irishman. Why, then, should their birthplaces go unmarked while the very site of his vanished birthplace is commemorated?

Possibly an answer will suggest itself to the mind of the visitor if, after he has looked at Mornington House, he turns west, and having passed Trinity College pursues his way along Dame Street. When he reaches Cornmarket he will find there another memorial tablet: it records that the house to which it is affixed is the birthplace of the rebel Napper Tandy. When he proceeds on to Thomas Street he will find

another memorial tablet telling him that the rebel Lord Edward Fitzgerald was there taken prisoner and received his death wound. There are many other memorial tablets on many other walls in the oity of Dublin; but, if I remember rightly, they all have one thing in common: they are erected to the memory of men who were enemies of England. Perhaps it is because Wellington and Burke were not enemies of England that their birthplaces are unmarked, and perhaps Swift's birthplace or its site is marked because, though all his life he hated Ireland much, in his old age he hated England more.

Jonathan Swift never loved or pretended to love Ireland or the Irish. He always desoribed himself as an Englishman who had the misfortune to be born in Ireland. The fierce struggles which he had with the Government of England were fought on behalf of those whom he called the "true English people of Ireland." The very last verses1 he ever wrote were in disparagement of the wit and intelligence of Irishmen. And yet the Celtic Irish to this day revere this Englishman, who despised and contemned them, as the first and greatest of Irish Nationalists. Let us see how far he deserves their

reverence.

In April 1682 Godwin Swift, a respected and reputed wealthy citizen of Dublin, entered his fatherless nephew Jonathan a

student of Trinity College, and paid the necessary fees. It may be assumed that he did this not very graciously. People are seldom over-gracious towards poor relations for whom they have to provide. And in this oase Upole Godwin seems to have had the unhappy disposition which afterwards marked nephew Jonathan. During his long life Dean Swift gave largely in charity, but his bounty was given without grace, and usually received without gratitude. And he received his uncle's graceless bounty with no gratitude, but with raging and reckless humiliation and resentment.

Swift used later in life to say that his uncle had given him the education of a dog. He must have meant he had given him his education as if he were a dog; for, in fact, the education which he received, or might, if he had ohosen, have received, was the best that Ireland could provide. He was, when he entered Trinity, fourteen years of age. He had previously been at Kilkenny School, and he remained at the University till he was twenty-one. The dramatist Congreve was two or three years before him educated in the very same institutions, and became a scholar of whom Oxford would be proud: Swift left Trinity with no reputation for anything except idleness, stupidity, and insubordination.

He himself gave the real reason for this: it was because he was "so discouraged and

1 Those on a new magazine being then erected in Phoenix Park.

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