"Is it ?" said the other, with something like a shriek-" is it? I know what you think. You have planned it all! I am a weak, ailing creature -dying every day. Half out of my senses, too. I know your game. But I am strong-strong enough to match you. I tell you I have watched you all along, and know every thing you have been about."

Jenny was beside herself with fury. The lamp she held in her hand showed the lines of her round face, working in a sort of contortion. She had strong passions had Jenny. She would hardly trust herself to speak. So she walked straight from the landing into the room, and confronted her enemy there.

"Infamous creature," she said, "I tell you these are calumnies-false, every one of them."

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They are true," said the other, fiercely. "Who was it stole the deeds, but yesterday? Ah! you see. Who was it sent away that wretched tool to France? You see, we know everything about you! The despised sick woman! Who was it used to steal out into the park and meet gentlemen? Who wrote gentlemen letters, ridiculing their master-the master of this house-whom they were cringing and flattering the next moment? Oh, we know all about you. The game is up, my lady, you have been very sly, but there have been others as sly. Your hand is spoiled, my fine young lady. All your little arts and tricks have been seen. And the poor creatures that have been thought so stupid, all along-one sick, another a child-they have been able to match this very clever lady. It is capital! Look here," she said, with a glance of fierce triumph, taking something from under her pillow. "Look here-you know this!" and she waived a strange mosaic looking letter, all patched, and pieced, and pasted across-indeed no other than Jenny's own note to Mr. Craven, rescued from the basket, its shreds carefully, and with infinite pains, put together. The note, alas! in which she had spoken so unguardedly of her patron, Mr. Maxwell.

Ah, my lady!" the other went on, furiously," we have you trapped now, and assure as Mr. Frederick Maxwell comes back to-morrow, he shall have this in his hand, and every word shall- Oh !"

She caught her side with a sudden start.

"Oh, this heart," she gasped. "Never mind," she added, "I can bear it. I shall live to see you ejected yet, Miss Bell."

Jenny's lips moved, but she could not speak. She was confounded, overwhelmed, and seemingly scared. The sick lady revelled insolently in her triumph.

Jenny then turned away, and looking at her with a sort of terror, left the room, slowly. She descended the stairs as slowly, and seemed almost stunned. At the first landing she stopped, and remained, with her eyes fixed steadily on her lamp.

As she stood there, she might, indeed, have felt that all her castles were tumbling down in ruins about her. The game did, indeed, seem "up," and Captain Jenny's army was getting into a rout.

Suddenly she recovered herself. A strange light flashed in her eyes. She lifted her head. She hurried up stairs, and entered her enemy's room again.

The sick woman was lying downpanting exhausted, and the smile of victory was on her lips. A dull lamp was upon the drawers. Jenny measured her, and drew her lips into the coldest and bitterest shape.

"Come back again!" said the sick lady. "What! not heard enough ?"

"They are false," said Jenny, speaking with a deliberate slowness, and keeping her eyes fixed steadily upon her. False, infamously false; and you, and those who are working with you, know it to be false."

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The other glared at her. Ah! wait until to-morrow," she said, “and you will see!"

"Ay, so we shall !" said Jenny, in the same tone. "You have told me what you have been doing to ruin me.'

OUR recent numbers have contained some papers describing rustic night dances, Sunday dances, and the academies in which was acquired the skill requisite for these assemblies half a century ago. We would have confined ourselves to this limited theme, but temptation lay in our path. The pleasant exercise was not restricted to these occasions: it entered into the congenial practices of May-boys, wren-boys, egg-boys, and mummers, and we were led on by the charm attached to youthful recollection. The subject could not be appropriately brought to an end without mention of the rustic harvest-home, to the complete enjoyment of which, dancing and singing were absolutely essential. There being no need of adducing reasons for, or seeking into the origin of, the institution, we will merely instance one which we, in part, witnessed ourselves at the age of sixteen. There were two or three very wet harvests in succession, one of which occurred A.D. 1817. Much of the wheat had begun to sprout before it could be secured, and the bread made from it ran into a sweet, malty mass between the crusts. After a week of continued rain, a dry, sunshiny Sunday morning came, and great joy prevailed among the congregation at Cloughbawn chapel. At the usual pause, before the conclusion of the Mass, the Rev. Mr. Furlong said a few appropriate words to the crowd.

The purport of the short oration was--that as the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and as Mr. G.'s big field of wheat was fit to be cut, and its crop might be lost if three or four days of the next week turned out wet, he thought they could not spend the next three hours better than in cutting it down, binding it in sheaves, and making up these same sheaves into "stooks." They desired nothing better. The moment the De Profundis was finished, men, women, and boys turned out and streamed down the path on the furzy hill-side to the field. Reaping-hooks were furnished from "the big house," or the neighbours' barns, and for the

next few hours the ripened field furnished as fine a sight as could be witnessed. Men, young and old, were cutting down the corn--their wives and daughters tying it up in sheaves

the delighted boys setting up these in stooks, and playing hide and seek among them at unguarded moments -young men and women jibing or complimenting each other the pleased owner and his lady enjoying the friendly efforts of their humble neighbours, the result, indeed, of their own well-known goodness to their dependents, and to the poor in general-and the hot sunshine pervading all as if there had not been a shower for a quarter of a year. Three or four churns full of mixed milk were in the field, so that no one suffered from thirst.

When nothing was to be seen at last but the shapely rows of stooks, our gentleman farmer addressed his people in a short speech, not remarkable for its skilful composition, but well calculated, notwithstanding, to interest his hearers. He returned them and their excellent clergyman his sincere thanks-the more sincere as he and they took different paths to their prayers on Sundays-and he hoped shortly to have the pleasure of meeting as many of them as his barn could hold at the harvest-home dinner. So, with mutual good wishes, he and they separated, and the wholesome homely dinners, now ready through the townland, received due attention from the dispersed workers.

At last the field stacks, made up from the stooks, were taken down one by one, brought home on cars, and skilfully made up into those large "haggard-stacks"-models for form, for economy in packing the greatest possible number of sheaves into a limited space, and for caution against interior invasion by wet. Mrs. G., and her daughters, and her servantmaids, and a few helpers, had been engaged from breakfast time in getting the mighty dinner ready-kitchen and parlour fires, and one or two in an outhouse being fully occupied. The barn had been cleared out the day before, and in the course of the

present morning was made as spruce as besoms and brushes could make it, and enlivened by two rows of tables, covered with clean table cloths, and furnished with dishes and well-arranged rows of plates, knives, forks, &c. Several fine bunches of fulleared wheat were suspended from the collar-beams," chairs were settled at the ends of the tables, and the sides furnished with forms and stools, and those who were only used to see the place in its litter of straw, grain, and sheaves, were delighted with its now neat and orderly appear

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ance.

Our festival took place in the rather gloomy month of October. The invited were informed that dinner would be ready soon after two o'clock -a sufficiently late hour for working men accustomed to noontide for their principal meal. Some minutes before the hour specified, groups of labourers and small landholders were seen approaching; and on the lawn, and in the big yard, and even in the haggard, collections of threes, and fours, and fives, might be seen in Sunday dress, high stiff shirt-collars, well-greased shoes, clean gray stockings, and brushed hats, striving to look unconcerned, but all the while uncomfortable in their best clothes, and somewhat disturbed by unwonted idleness at an ordinary hour of labour. Mr. G. and his two fine young sons, and our old friends, Brian Roche, Charley Redmond, and Edward O'Brien, with some other farmer-folk of the better class, were in attendance as honorary guests, and these moving from one group to another, kept up their spirits near to the healthy point, till the large dishes of potatoes, and meat, and cabbage were seen pouring out of the back door, and crossing the yard to the barn. Then was heard the clang of the bell* from its little campanile over the stable, and the junior members of the family, our dear old friends under Mr. O'Neill, Charlotte and Martha, and Rebecca and Rich

ard, to whom this was a genuine gala day, and who had been playing tricks on every one in their exuberance of spirits from an early hour, now acted as whippers-in, collecting and hurrying this or that shy person from lawn and haggard, and all the outlying purlieus, till the chairs and forms were filled, and mighty slices of bacon or roast beef reposing on beds of white cabbage, began to be distributed by the sons of our "big farmer," and the young men already named.

The mistress of the mansion had no great trouble with the solid portion of the entertaiment once the seats were taken. The good cup-potatoes, in ordinary cases forming a wedge whose broad back rested on the table, were here supplied in large dishes. The quantity of these, and of the sides of bacon, and rounds and ribs of beef, first laid down needed no renewal. Instead of the ordinary noggin of milk which each guest was in the habit of seeing at his right hand, he found a jug or big mug full of good home-brewed beer, such as a Dublin epicure could not obtain in his habitat at any price. No need of waiters hurrying to-and-fro to attend to the wants of the guests. Every carver generally supplied to his own clients as much meat and cabbage at once as he could consume; the potatoes were there in abundance, and black-jacks stood at intervals to supply the mugs or jugs with the appetizing draught.

The good-natured, frolicsome children desired no better fun than running with these jacks when they began to get low to the beer barrel at the end of the building, filling and carrying them to their stations, generally pulling the ear of the person to whom they handed the vessel, if they found the eyes of father or brothers turned away, and indulging in those hearty bursts of childish merrimentthe sweetest sounds in creation. The sons of the house and the other carvers seated at the ends and the sides of the

the while.

There was, without doubt, some awkwardness in individuals of our happy party, but no vulgarity, in its repulsive sense. There were present persons of at least five castes, from the mere labourer to him, who, if his lands were freehold, instead of being rented, would be considered a gentleman of consideration. Some were in a little awe of those above them, others wished to preserve the esteem of those below them, and the result, as it regarded the conversation and demeanour of the assembly, was agreeable. There was, indeed, some oppressive assumption exhibited by the son of one of the small farmers of the neighbourhood, now a clerk in a "haberdashery emporium," as he was pleased to call it, in New Ross, but it did not effect much mischief. He was certainly very tiresome, with his consequential parties in the town, and what Mr. Tottenham, and Mr. Frizell, of Old Ross, and Mr. Lambert, of Carnagh, said to him, and what he said to them, and, "pon his honour, he found in the wide circle of acquaintance that he made in Ross from all parts of the country, that Protestant landlords were much better liked

VOL. LXII.-NO. CCCLXXII.

by their Catholic tenants than the landlords of their own sort; that it would be all very well if such a day as they were enjoying could happen once in a month or so, but, 'pon his honour, he was afraid he could not take to country life again, with his shoes heavy with the wet clay of the fields, and he having to work in the heat, and the cold, and the rain, and eat potatoes twenty-one times a week for novelty, and not see a cup of tea oftener than Sunday evenings, and a tumbler of punch hardly once a month, nor hear a song sung by note, nor enjoy the delightful music of a piania," &c., &c., &c. The subject-matter of this was bad enough, but he made it worse. He had an impediment in his speech, aggravated by affectation, which resulted in half his words being most disagreeably lengthened by the syllable oi repeated four or five times. He evidently considered this a beauty in delivery, or, as he would phrase it, delivering his sentiments in a "slap-up style."

Aquiet, easy-going neighbour of the young shopman's father, well aware of the poor style of living in which he was brought up, gave him a bit of his mind as soon as he could find an opening. "Ah! then, Mr. Doyle-I suppose I must say Mister now, though I was often obleeged to say, 'Shamus, you thief, will you let my apples alone!'-Mr. James, did you ever hear of Tom Lamb's son, of Ross-street (Rossdroit), when he came home from Lunnon, where he went wonst with Mr. Hinson? He was sittin' one side of the fire, and his father the other, and they worn't sayin' anything for a while, till the cat came up, and sot on the harth, and looked up in his face. 'Ah, then, ould gentleman,' says he, 'what do you call this long-tailed beggar?' Arrah, Jack,' says the old man, maybe that'll larn you,' giving him a welt across the shouldhers with a good black-thorn kippeen he had in his hand, that made him jump, I give you my word. 'Purshuin',' says he, to all consated scoggins, that if they only lived in Iniscorfy hafe a year, wouldn't know themselves at the end of it."" The buck was a little taken aback when he heard bursts of laughter rising round him on every side; but it is likely he had recovered his self-complacency before he reached

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