"There is, dear Mave; there is," he replied, with a melancholy smile, "an' a great deal of care in my heart. You look thin yourself, and careworn too, dear."

"We are not without our own struggles at home," she replied, "as, indeed, who is now? But we had more than ourselves to fret for."

"Who?" he asked; but on putting the question, he saw a look of such tender reproach in her eye as touched him.

"Kind heart!" he exclaimed; "kindest and best of hearts, why should I ax such a question? Surely I ought to know you. I am glad I met you, Mave, for I have many things to say to you, an' it's hard to say when I may have an opportunity again."

"I know that is true," said she; "but I did not expect to meet you here."

"Mave," he proceeded, in a voice filled with melancholy and sadness, "you acknowledged that you loved me."

She looked at him, and that look moved him to the heart.

"I know you do love me," he proceeded, "and now, dear Mave, the thought of that fills my heart with sorrow."

She started slightly, and looked at him again with a good deal of surprise; but on seeing his eyes filled with tears, she also caught the contagion, and asked with deep emotion:

"Why, dear Condy? Why does my love for you make your heart sorrowful?"

"Because I have no hope," said he--"no hope that ever you can be mine."

Mave remained silent; for she knew the insurmountable obstacles that prevented their union; but she wept afresh.

"When I saw your father last, behind your garden, the day I struck Donnel Dhu," Dalton proceeded, "I tould him what I then believed to be true, that my father never had a hand in your uncle's death. Mave, dear, I cannot tell a lie; nor I will not. I couldn't say as much to him now; I'm afeard that his death is on my father's sowl."

Mave started and got pale at the words. "Great G.o.d!" she exclaimed, "don't say so, Con dear. Oh, no, no--is it your father that was always so good, an' so generous to every one that stood in need of it at his hands, an' who was also so charitable to the poor?"

"Ay," said he, "he was charitable to the poor; but of late I've heard him say things that n.o.body but a man that has some great crime to answer for could or would say. I believe too that what the public says is right: that it's the hand of G.o.d Himself that's upon him an' us for that murdher."

"But maybe," said Mave, who still continued pale and trembling; "maybe it was accidentally afther all; a chance blow, maybe; but whatever it was, dear Con, let us spake no more about it. I am not able to listen to it; it would sicken me soon."

"Very well, dear, we'll drop it; an' I hope I'm wrong; for I can't think, afther all, that a man with such a kind and tendher heart as my father--a pious man, too; could--" he paused a moment, and then added; "oh! no; I'm surely wrong; he never did the act. However, as we said, I'll drop it; for indeed, dear Mave, I have enough that's sorrowful and heartbreakin' to spake about, over and above that unfortunate subject."

"I hope," said Mave, "that there's nothing worse than your own illness; an' you know, thanks be to the Almighty, you're recoverin' fast from that."

"My poor lovin' sister Nancy," said he, "was laid down yesterday morning with this terrible faver; she was our chief dependence; we could stand it out no longer; I could, an' can do nothing; an' my mother this mornin'"--His tears fell so fast, and his affliction was so deep, that he was not able, for a time to proceed.

"Oh! what about her?" asked Mave, partic.i.p.ating in his grief; "oh! what about her that every one loves?"

"She was obliged to go out this mornin'," he proceeded, "to beg openly in the face of day among the neighbors! Now, Mave Sullivan, farewell!" said he rising, while his face was crimsoned over with shame; "farewell, Mave Sullivan; all, from this minute, is over between you an' me. The son of a beggar must never become your husband; will never call you his wife; even if there was no other raison against it."

The melancholy but lovely girl rose with him; she trembled; she blushed--and again got pale; then blushed once more; at length she spoke:

"An' is that, dear Con, all that you yet know of Mave Sullivan's heart, or the love for you that's in it? Your mother! Oh! an' is it come to that with her? But--but--do you think that even that, or anything that wouldn't be a crime in yourself; or, do you think; oh! I know not what to say; I see now, dear Con, the raison for the sorrow that's in your face; the heart-break an' the care that's there; I see, indeed, how low in spirits an' how hopeless you are; an' I see that although your eye is clear still it's heavy; heavy with hard affliction; but then, what is love, Con dear, if it's to fly away when these things come on us? Is it now, then, that you'd expect me to desert you?--to keep cool with you, or to lave you when you have no other heart to go to for any comfort but mine? Oh, no! Con dear. You own Mave Sullivan is none of these.

G.o.d knows it's little comfort," she proceeded, weeping bitterly; "it's little comfort's in my poor heart for any one; but there's one thing in it, Con, dear; that, poor as I stand here this minute; an' where, oh!

where is there or could' there be a poorer girl than I am; still there's one thing in it that I wouldn't exchange for this world's wealth; an'

that, that, dear Con, is my love for you! That's the love, dear Con, that neither this world nor its cares, nor its shame, nor its poverty, nor its sorrow, can ever overcome or banish; that's the love that would live with you in wealth; that would keep by your side through good and through evil; that would share your sickness; that would rejoice with you; that would grieve with you; beg with you, starve with you, an', to go where you might, die by your side. I cannot bid you to throw care and sorrow away; but if it's consolation to you to know an' to feel how your own Mave Sullivan loves you, then you have that consolation. Dear Con, I am ready to marry you, an' share your distress tomorrow; ay, this day, or this minute, if it could be done."

There was a gentle, calm, but firm enthusiasm about her manner, which carried immediate conviction with it, and as her tears fell in silence, she bestowed a look upon her lover which fully and tenderly confirmed all that her tongue had uttered.

Both had been standing; but her lover, taking her hand, sat down, as she also did; he then turned around and pressed her to his heart; and their tears in this melancholy embrace of love and sorrow both literally mingled together.

"I would be ungrateful to G.o.d, my beloved Mave," he replied, "and unworthy of you--and, indeed, at best I'm not worthy of you--if I didn't take hope an' courage, when I know that sich a girl Joves me; as it is, I feel my heart aisier, an' my spirits lighter; although, at the same time, dear Mave, I'm very wake, and far from being well."

"That's bekaise this disturbance of your mind is too much for you yet--but keep your spirits up; you don't know," she continued, smiling sweetly through her tears; "what a delightful prophecy was fulfilled for us this day--ay, awhile ago, even when I met you."

"No," he replied, "what was it?" She then detailed the particulars of Donnel Dhu's prediction, which she dwelt upon with a very cheerful spirit, after which she added:

"And now, Con dear, don't you think that's a sign we'll be yet happy?"

Dalton, who placed no reliance whatever on Donnel Dhu's impostures, still felt reluctant to destroy the hope occasioned by such an agreeable illusion. "Well," he replied, "although I don't much believe in anything that ould scoundrel says; I trust, for all that, that he has tould you truth for wanst."

"But how did you happen to come here, Con?" she asked; "to be here at the very minute, too?"

"Why," said he, "I was desired to be the first to meet you after you pa.s.sed the Grey Stone--the very one we're sittin' on--if I loved you, an' wished to sarve you."

"But who on earth could tell you this?" she asked; "bekaise I thought no livin' bein' knew of it but myself and Donnel Dhu."

"It was Sarah, his daughter," said Dalton; "but when I asked her why I should come to do so, she wouldn't tell me--she said if I wished to save you from evil, or at any rate from trouble. That's a strange girl--his daughter," he added; "she makes one do whatever she likes."

"Isn't she very handsome?" said Mave, with an expression of admiration.

"I think she's without exception, the prettiest girl I ever seen; an'

her beautiful figure beats all; but somehow they say every one's afraid of her, an' durstn't vex her."

"She examined me well yesterday, at all events," replied Con. "I thought them broad, black, beautiful eyes of hers would look through me. Many a wager has been laid as to which is the handsomest--you or she; an'

I know hundreds that 'ud give a great deal to see you both beside one another."

"Indeed, an' she has it then," said Mave, "far an' away, in face, in figure, an' in everything."

"I don't think so," he replied; "but at any rate not in everything--not in the heart, dear Mave--not in the heart."

"They say she's kind hearted, then," replied Mave.

"They do," said Con, "an' I don't know how it comes; but somehow every one loves her, and every one fears her at the same time. She asked me yestherday if I thought my father murdhered Sullivan."

"Oh! for G.o.d's sake, don't talk about it," said Mave, again getting pale; "I can't bear to hear it spoken of."

The Grey Stone--on a low ledge of which, nearly concealed from public view, our lovers had been sitting--was, in point of size, a very large rock of irregular size. After the last words, alluding to the murder, had been uttered, an old man, very neatly but plainly dressed, and bearing a pedlar's pack, came round from behind a projection of it, and approached them. From his position, it was all but certain that he must have overheard their whole conversation. Mave, on seeing him, blushed deeply, and Dalton himself felt considerably embarra.s.sed at the idea that the stranger had been listening, and become acquainted with circ.u.mstances that were never designed for any other ears but their own.

The old man, on making his appearance, surveyed our lovers from head to foot with a curious and inquisitive eye--a circ.u.mstance which, taken in connection with his eaves-dropping, was not at all relished by young Dalton.

"I think you will know us again," said he in no friendly voice. "How long have you been sittin' behind the corner there?" he inquired.

"I hope I may know yez agin," replied the pedlar, for he was one; "I was jist long enough behind the corner to hear some of what you were spakin'

about last."

"An' what was that?" said Dalton, putting him to the test.