"A mother is a mother still-the holiest thing alive.'

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So ye'll have nothin' to say to me, Mary? Well, I've nothin' more to say to ye now, except a long good by. For I'll not shtay in this counthry to be made a fool of by ye any longer. Shtandin' up Shtandin' up for every set in the dance-house wid me one night, maybe, and turnin' yer back on me the next. Walkin' the whole road to Mass wid me on a Sunda', and scarce lookin' at me to bid me the time o' day on Monda'. But I'll shtand it no longer. So now take me or lave me as ye like. I'll sail be the very next steamer for America, and I hope ye'll thrate the next boy that comes coortin' ye betther nor ye did me. Anyway, I'll not be here to see

it. So good by to ye now."

And Thady Connor turned on his heel and walked quickly away, leaving Mary Reilly standing alone in the lane looking after him.

"Ah, thin, go to America, and me blessin' go wid ye," she cried after him. "A sinal loss ye'd be to any one if ye never came back, a sore-timpered, cranky Och, Thady, Thady, Thady! is it really gone ye are? Oh, wirra, wirra! what'll I do at all, at all?" And Mary, hiding her face in her apron, burst into a violent fit of crying. But it did not last long; she soon wiped her eyes, and, with head erect and firm tread, walked back to her own cottage.

It was a still evening about the middle of October. There was a frosty feeling in the air, and a mist was beginning to rise in the low ground. When Mary reached her own door, she paused a minute to look round before she went in.

A pretty scene it was in the waning light of the autumn evening, and a wild scene, too, in parts. The Reillys' cottage stood on the edge of a cutaway bog, which, with its piled-up stacks of turf and deep holes reflecting the setting sun, looked bleak and wild enough. It was surrounded on three sides by a wood of fir and larch-trees, which bounded the view there, though far away behind the woods rose some hills, called by the natives" mountains." At the back of the cottage a rich pasture-land, diversified with oat fields and other crops, stretched

as far as the eye could see, ending in the woods belonging to the "big house," about two miles distant.

Various cottages or hovels were dotted about here and there, all of the same type as Mary Reilly's, and they did not add to the civilized appearance of the scene. Low thatched cottages, most of them black and dirty, with the thatch in bad repairall with the "dunkle," [a heap of filthy refuse, in front of the house. No attempt at beautifying their homes had been made in any one instance. Where there was a garden there was nothing to be seen in it but a few cabbages-not a flower anywhere. In all the hovels the doors stood open to let out the thick volume of turfsmoke with which the house was filled.

Such as it was it was Mary's home, and she loved it dearly. She looked all round now with a softened expression in her eyes; they filled with tears, which she brushed impatiently away with her hand, and entered the house. Accustomed all her life to the smoky atmosphere, she had no difficulty in seeing the inmates. A turf-fire burned on the ground, and seated very close to it, on a sack of chaff, was a small, brown, dried-up old woman, with a red handkerchief tied round her head, smoking a short pipe. This was Mary's grandmother. Her mother, a fine-looking, middle-aged woman, stood at the other side of the fire, stirring up a mess of pig's food in a large iron pot, which had a strong but not savory smell.

It was from her mother Mary had inherited her tall stature, masses of jet-black hair, and fine features. Her father and brother were of quite another and very inferior type-middle sized, with reddish complexions and flat features. They had a long net between them, which they seemed to be mending.

"Och, father," said Mary, when she saw what they were doing, shure ye're not goin' out to-night."

"And why not?" said her father. "It'll be a fine dark night, and we ought to get a good haul of rabbits in the long wood."

own business," said her brother, sharply; and Mary sat down to her knitting with a dissatisfied expression of countenance. She knew that her mother agreed with her in her heart in her dislike of poaching, though she did not dare to say so; while the old woman-her father's motheraided and abetted the men, to the best of her power, in every lawless measure.

These were bad times, the autumn of 1882, and poaching and discontent were likely to go to extremes undreamt of by Mary a few years ago. This she knew well.

The night passed quietly, the Reillys returned unmolested with their spoil of rabbits, and the next evening about sundown saw Mary strolling on again toward the field of oats, where she knew Thady Connor was working.

He soon appeared in the lane with his reaping-hook in his hand. He started, and seemed surprised to see Mary, and would have passed her by without speaking, but she placed herself in his way in the narrow lane, and said:

"Good-evenin' to ye, Thady.

take yer ticket for America yet?"

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Did ye

"I hadn't the time to-day," he replied, shortly;" but never fear, I'll take it soon enough, and ye'll be quit of me for good and all."

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Thady," as he tried to pass her, "I've just one word to say to ye before ye go. (Whisper.) Don't take it at all, Thady, or else take two while ye're about it."

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Throth, I do, Thady; and if ye go at all, don't go without me," and as he clasped his arms about her, she raised her blushing face to his, and their lips met in a long loving kiss.

"Well, well, Mary," said Thady, about half an hour afterward, "I often heerd women were quare and conthrairy in their ways, but I don't believe there could be another as quare as yerself. To think ov the way ye thrated me, an' you havin' a likin' for me all the time! Arra, Mary why did ye do it at all, at all? Me heart was nearly broke wid ye."

"Ah, then, Thady, it only shows what an ould omathaun ye are, not to know that if I didn't like ye I wouldn't have NEW SERIES.-VOL. ! 'I., No. 5.

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'Well, Mary, before I go I want to know when I may come and ax your father for you?"

"Deed, I don't know what to say to that, Thady. Me father and Terry are not goin' on to me likin' at all, out poochin' every dark night ov their life, and always sayin' agin' payin' the rint, an' agin' the young masther. Mother and I is fairly annoyed wid them, and th' ould woman encourages them in everything that's bad. It's my belief they wouldn't be half as bad if she wasn't in it; an' I'm afraid they belong to some o' them blackguard sacret societies, they're out so often in the evenin's now, and have a kind of a sacret way wid them that I don't like; and they say things about you, Thady, that they've no call to say. I don't think they've a bit likin' for you."

"Ay," said Thady, bitterly, "bekase I pay me rint honest, and mind me own work, instead av stalin' the masther's rabbits. Well, maybe I'd betther wait a bit; maybe times 'ill mend, and shure ye're worth waitin' for any way, Mary."

"Well, it's getthin' dark now, Thady, I'd betther be goin';" and with a fond embrace they parted.

A few days elapsed, during which Mary still kept her secret. Her suspicions about her father and brother had become certainty, as they now no longer concealed that they went to secret meetings at various houses of the worst character in the neighborhood. Mary and her mother suffered much grief and anxiety on their account, but remonstrance was useless, and only brought down a tirade of abuse on their heads from the two men and the old woman.

Things had been going on so for about a week, when Mary came in one day, after a talk with Thady during the dinner-hour. Her father and brother were away for the day, doing a job of stacking oats for a farmer. She was resolved to have a talk with her mother, and perhaps tell her all about Thady, and get her to intercede for them. But to that a in for a

40

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her disappointment she found neighbor woman' had dropped kaly," and was at this moment

telling a most interesting anecdote to her mother, who listened with unwavering at

tention.

Mary took her knitting and sat down, intending to wait until the visit was over. "Well," the woman was saying, "havin' a little business of me own in the town, I tuk the child and the dunkey asses' car, and dhruv in. Well, whin I got into the market-place, did I take a wakeness? Biddy Muldoon kem up, and whin she seen me, she wouldn't be of it, but I must go down to Mrs. Gibney's to get a sup o' somethin'. Well, she kem down wid me, and whin I wint in, Catherine,' says Mrs. Gibney, ye're wake.' 'I am wake, ma'am,' says I, with respects to ye; I think it's the med-e-cine I tuk-’"

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Mary could stand it no longer the anecdote seemed interminable, though to her mother apparently full of interest, as she listened with long-drawn sniffs, and ejaculations of Well, well,' "Did ever ye hear the like?" "Did ye now!" etc., etc. So Mary took her knitting, and going out to a field at the back of the house, walked up and down by a thick hawthorn hedge which divided it from the next field.

Her thoughts were busy with Thady, and speculations as to her future, so that for some time she did not notice that there were voices on the other side of the hedge; nor did she until her brother's name, distinctly spoken, attracted her attention. She could not help listening then, and soon recognized the voice of the speaker to belong to a little boy, the son of a very disreputable neighbor of the name of Kelly, in whose house Mary believed unlawful meeting were frequently held.

secret, having sworn Patsy to inviolable secrecy, proceeded to tell all he knew, while Mary listened with eager interest.

"Well, Patsy, there's two people to be removed' in the next month, and I lave ye to guess who they are."

Patsy having made some very bad shots, Con first withered him with scorn, and then went on to tell him.

"Why, first and foremost, av coorse, the young masther. He must be removed at wanst. I heerd thim say so, and they're to have a big meetin' and dhraw lots for the job some o' these nights. But the other, guess now-ye'll never guess who the other is not a gintleman at all, but Thady Connor."

Mary's heart gave a wild bound, and then seemed to stand still, then galloped on again, while her head seemed as if it would burst, and a sound like waves roaring surged in her ears.

But she put a constraint upon herself, and forced herself to listen. The boys now stood still in the intense interest of Con's narrative.

"Ay," he was saying when Mary again heard him, "Terry Reilly named him. He's always goin' agin' them for poochin', and he's goin' to pay his rint next Hollentide, and Terry Reilly says he's as bad as any ov the landgrabbers, and ought to be removed, and I'm of that opinion too."

Mary waited to hear no more. Putting her shawl over her head, she ran a few steps toward the lane leading to the oatfield which she had so often visited in the last week; then remembering that until work was over, Thady would be among other men, and she could not get a word alone with him, she paused a moment, and then turned her steps toward the big house."

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It was about four o'clock when she arrived at the Hall, and she was at once shown up to the drawing-room. Mary had always been a favorite with Miss Fitzgerald, the young mistress," as she was generally called, though her mother had been dead for some years. She was sitting at work now, but rose and greeted Mary kindly when she came in.

"Well, Mary, how are you? and how is your mother, and the gran, and all of you? Won't you sit down? But, Mary, what is the matter?"

As Mary put the shawl down from her

head, which had partially concealed her features, Miss Fitzgerald saw for the first time the stony set look of her face, and the wild agonized expression in her eyes. The girl could not speak for a second, and on finding her voice burst into a violent flood of tears. At first she could say nothing but Oh, Miss Alice, Miss Alice! the villains, the blackguards !'' But Alice led her to a sofa, and soothed her with kind words, and soon the girl was able to speak more coherently.

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Oh, Miss Alice, it's the bad news I have for you; but shure I didn't know what else to do but to come straight to yer honor and tell ye all I heerd."

"Quite right, Mary. You know I am always your friend, and have been since the days when you and Terry, and Master Edward and I, used to go fishing in Lough Ivaghan, and I have never forgotten the delicious hot oat-cake and fresh butter your mother used to give us afterward. So tell me all your troubles, Mary, and you may be quite sure you will always find both myself and my brother willing and anxious to help you in any way we can."

Alice Fitzgerald spoke on, hoping to give Mary time to control her emotion. But it seemed as if every word she said but added to the poor girl's trouble.

"Och, Miss Alice dear, shure that's what it is breaks me heart intirely. To think of your goodness to us ever and always, and now the way they're turnin' round on ye."

On me! Do tell me what it all is, Mary. I am most anxious to hear."

Well, I may as well say it out first as last, and the story is, Miss Alice, that Masther Edward is the next on the lisht to be removed,' as they call it. I only heerd it about a half an hour ago, and I kem straight to yer honor to see what could ye do."

Alice Fitzgerald turned very pale, but looked more angry than alarmed.

"The villains! Is it, can it be true, Mary? Have you heard it on good authority?"

"Ay, miss, the besht at all. I heerd that little spalpeen Consheen Kelly tellin' Patsy Muckanroo that he was at the last meetin' hid in behind the dhresser, and heerd every word iv their chat."

"Well, Mary, you are a brave true girl to come and tell me at once. I thank

"Och! thank God for that same. But that's not all, Miss Alice. The next afther the young masther is to be-is to be-"

"Who, Mary? Speak out; not myself, surely."

"Aw, no, Miss Alice; it's to be Thady Connor."

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Thady Connor! Oh, Mary! is that how it is?''

"Throth it is, Miss Alice. I'm spakin' to him this while back, and he gev me no pace nor aise till I promised to marry him follyin' me, and botherin' me wherever I wint."

"Well, Mary, I think you have chosen very wisely. I have the highest opinion of Thady Connor in every way, besides thinking him a fine handsome young fellow. ("Och, he's not," from Mary.) "But why should you think they want to remove him?"

"Well, miss, bekase he's a quite dacent boy, and doesn't go out poochin' and dhrinkin' wid them, and bekase he's goin' to pay his rint at Hollentide, and the others is all makin' up a band to say agin' it. And, oh! Miss Alice, what'll poor Thady do at all, at all? He can't get polis to purtect him."

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Don't fret, Mary. I'll speak to Master Edward about it, and I'm sure he'll be able to think of something. And now, Mary" but before she could finish her sentence, Mary, having caught sight of the clock, exclaimed, "Five o'clock ! Och, is it five o'clock it is? I must go, Miss Alice," and putting her shawl over her head again, she took her leave, refusing all offers of refreshment.

She hurried away to meet Thady, which she did sooner than she expected. He was coming down the road, whistling gayly, with his sickle in his hand.

"Och, Mary, is that yourself, comin' to meet me? But what's on ye, Mary? Why, what is it at all, at all?" He threw down his sickle, and in the shelter of his loving arms Mary sobbed out her sad story.

"Well, bad luck to thim," was Thady's remark when he heard all Mary had to tell. "But don't be botherin' yerself

about them, Mary. They're not worth it. I'd like to see the boy that 'id lay a finger on me. Don't ye think I'm able for them, Mary-eh ?"

"Och, Thady, what's the use o' talkin'? Shure, I know well enough ye'd be able for two or three o' then in a fair fight. But if seven or eight o' them sets on ye some dark night, and you not thinkin' about them, what could ye do then? An' ye know well enough that's the way they'll thrate ye. Och, Thady, there's nothin' for it but to go to America. Ye were ready enough to go last week. So now go next week, if they let you live that long, and me blessin' 'ill go wid ye, Thady, and I'll go out to ye as soon as I can earn the money. If it wasn't till twenty years, I'd never look at another boy. Now say ye'll go before we part this evenin', an' I'll go home wid a light heart."

How

Och, Mary, shure I can't give you an answer in such a hurry as that. What about me ould mother, Mary the besht mother that ever reared a boy, and she a widdy woman ever since I was born, and not a chick nor a child but meself. could I go and lave her? And I haven't the money to take the two of uz. alone that I think she'd niver be able for the journey. For you know, Mary, she's complainin' this while back, and she was very donny* in herself all this week."

Let

"Och, Thady, shure I'll be a daughter to her, and mind her as well as ye could yerself but go, Thady, do go for my sake. But I must lave ye now, for it's ettin' dark, and shure if they knew I was talkin' to you they'd have my life."

Good-nights were exchanged, and Mary hurried homeward, while Thady resumed his sickle, and walked slowly off in another direction, buried in deep thought. He whistled no more, nor was his step as light as before meeting Mary. He soon reached his home, which was but a hovel, on the other side of the bog from Mary's house. But though very small, and wretchedly poor in all its surroundings, it was as spotlessly clean as the constant turfsmoke would allow it to be. A clear turffire blazed on the hearth, a row of clean shining plates adorned the dresser, the floor was swept, the chairs and stools all

* Poorly.

well rubbed-everything about the little kitchen bore evidence that the inmate was a cleaner and tidier person than the lower orders of Irish generally are. When Thady came in, his mother was sitting in a wooden arm chair beside the fire. Her knitting lay in her lap, and her head leant back upon the dresser behind her. She slept, and the wan white look on her face struck terror to Thady's heart.

He loved his mother dearly. They had been all in all to each other for so many years, and the signs of age and failing health which she had lately begun to show grieved him intensely.

He stood for a few minutes looking sadly at the loved old face, with its delicate worn features and soft white bair smoothly banded under her neat cap. Her dress was very poor, but all clean and tidy. She opened her eyes, and seeing Thady, smiled a welcome.

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"Is that you, Thady? Sit down, avick, and I'll wet the tay this minute. The kettle's boilin', but I didn't expect ye so soon.'

"The field's done, mother. We got it all up to-day. But what's on ye? You don't look well at all, at all.”

"I'm a bit donny, Thady, but not too bad entirely. I'm thinkin' I'll live to see ye bring a young wife to mind me and the house, and then I'll get a bit rest before I die.'

"An' 'deed an' ye've earned it well, mother. Up early and down late, ever since I knew you, to keep me clane and comfortable. My blessin' and God's blessin' go wid ye, mother, for all ye've done for me all me life."

"Why, Thady, avick, what's on ye at all? Shure, why wouldn't I mind ye well, and you all I had in the world? and now I'm gettin' ould, shure you'll mind me as long as God laves me in it, and bury me dacent when I die, along o' your poor father."

"I will, mother. I'll never lave ye while I live. I'll shtand to ye while I have a breath in me body, and I'll bury ye dacent, if you don't bury me first. And the honest fellow's eyes filled with tears, and his voice was hoarse with emotion.

Though but a poor, uncouth, Irish peasant, Thady's love for the mother who had given him life, and lived but for him, was as unselfish and chivalrous as though that