eligible husband. She need not die an old maid, for there were plenty who would take her for her money's sake; but what sort were they? She would frown barely to think of them. If Oranmore did not make her his wife, who would, unless some needy good-fornothing? And yet must she in the end descend to the level of such, after all her splendid dreams, after all D'Auvergne awakened into stirring being within her! This probably might be at last her fate, for how was she to live alone, and die a neglected old maid? Or if not neglected, courted by hypocritical relations, that she might remember them in her will. Then she would, mid her reflections, cast a glance at her small hands, and smile to see how they were becoming smaller; and nearly all her precious rings were being laid aside, for hardly one she could find which would fit her fingers now. No, she may never die an old maid, was the frequent conclusion in her mind from the downbent look at those fading hands. In spite of her money, men were getting shy of her; for they were rendered uneasy in her company, ignorant of the sorrow which was the hidden cause of her habitual gloom in society, so much at variance with her once brilliant manner and conversational powers. She saw with pain their altered demeanour with her, and it was a bitter pill for one to swallow who had been amongst the brightest of the bright stars of beautiful women, who lend with the loveliness of their purity a ray of heaven to social circles, and are as angel guides to men who have to contend with the world. This afternoon upon the rustic bridge, Madeleine Leyne thinks sadly of that cold neglect, which is chilling her heart every time the recollection of it comes to her, and that is often, and as she remembers it, she remembers too the mournful meaning of Longfellow's poem : "Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme, 66 Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, The stars were coming out in the darkening sky, when Madeleine returned home through the grove by a different path to that whereby she had proceeded hither. Her downcast eyes caught sight, as she walked slowly on her way, of the gleam from something dimly shining upon the ground, and half concealed by grass and brambles. She stooped to pick it up, and discovered it was a large carvingknife. Wondering why it should have been lost here, and believing that, as a matter of course, it belonged to the cutlery store at St. Mary's, she brought it back with her, gave it to one of the servants, and thought no more about it until some days later when O'Malley Oranmore was dining with them. "I found that fine carving-knife," she said to him, "which you are just after using, lying on the grass and half covered with clay, as I came home through the grove the other evening. I hope, O'Malley, it is a good one. The servant told me after I gave it to her that the butler remarked it was a new comer, a stranger, that it did not belong to any set of knives we have." "No," added Mary, "it cannot belong to us. I never saw it before you showed it to me, Madeleine. But it is a very fine knife. What could have been the reason of its lying in the grove, as if some one had thrown it over the hedge in order to hide it? Is it a good carver?" she asked Oranmore. "It is a remarkably good one," he said, growing a shade paler. "Shall I help you to some more ham? It cuts the slices so exquisitely that really they do look tempting, don't they?" he asked with an unruffled mien. "Yes; but you take none yourself? Why?" "Oh! I don't care for ham, Mary." "I thought you were extremely fond of it?" said Madeleine. 66 Yes, but not that ha-not to-day, Madeleine, my dear," he answered. "By-the-bye, if you don't want the knife, and if it does not match with any set you have, let me take it away with me. It does its work so beautifully, I would like to have it in my possession,, if you do not object. Being a bachelor still, you know, I don't care that every knife upon my table should look like one of the same tribe of knives, and bear the impress of the same maker's name." "You can have it if you please," Madeleine replied. "And since you have been the finder of it, I shall prize it the more!" he said. She bowed her head and gratefully smiled, and he carried the carving-knife back with him that evening to town. There was a stain here and there upon it which was small, and escaped the notice of the servants belonging to the Leyne family, but which the keenly examining scrutiny of Oranmore vividly and with considerable uneasiness detected. That knife in the hands of a skilful analyst might tell a tale of undiscovered crime disagreeable to the ear of Oranmore. He did not bury the knife this time in the earth, as he did before; he first defaced it by burning it in the fire which gave warmth to his own sitting-room, and afterwards, when it was cooled again and less recognizable, he flung it at night into the eastward-flowing river Liffey, where probably it found a meet hiding-place for itself in the mud and slime so fragrant to the nasal organ of the Dublin Corporation. S CHAPTER XIV. LEAVING THE EARTH. "O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, "All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; IT It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; TENNYSON. T is a trial for human souls accustomed from birth upwards to the ease of uninterrupted prosperity to find unawares their present and their future darkened by the gloom and the depression of exacting poverty. The past-for those, at least, who have travelled it sinless and in peace-is more or less an indistinct dream marked here and there with some noteworthy recollection; and when for such the advent of an unlooked-for misfortune is at hand, it comes like at last an awakening to reality out of the fanciful security wherein they have been calmly |