'Dear! poor creature; I must not see her then, I suppose?' he added, knowing that a visit to the sick, under any circumstances, is often an alleged interference with the priest's prerogative.

'Oh yes! yes!' cried a weak voice from the inner room, Please come in, sir; will you make him come in, ma'am?'

The rector immediately entered Kate's room, from which, as I guessed she would prefer some private conversation, I withdrew. I stepped in the outer room, and the old woman not deigning to notice me, threw back her stool to the wall, and re-seating herself went on as formerly.

'Yes, yes-that was just it: it wasn't the jealousy all out, so much as the religion he was against-the black-hearted creature-if poor Pat Delany hadn't been of the true faith he might be alive to-day; but he is the blessed martyr now-the heavens be his bed!'

'Well, Mrs. Conolly,' said the man at the fire, 'there is no use in talking of it now.'

'No use, is it? ah, then, it's likely I'll let it be no use! I'll talk of it, and talk of it, till I rise the country on the head of it! No use then, we'll see that! if there is law or justice to be had, the man that killed Pat Delany will be hung for it before this day three months comes round again.'

O'Toole rose up, and though she called to him he was gone in a moment. Feeling for the unhappy girl who was doomed to hear such speeches, for the apartments were scarcely divided, I said that she was very unwell, and ought not to have her mind disturbed.

'Oh! then it's she that has the distracted mind

this day, and it's she that is the unlucky girl entirely.' The old woman cried in an angry, more than sorrowful tone; and then lowering it, so as not to be at least distinctly heard in the next room, she added, 'A weary day it was for her and me that brought us among the black Protestants of the north.'

'Well, Mrs. Conolly, times of sorrow should soften all hearts, and remove these bitter feelings; death has been among us, and we should all be prepared for it; it is awful to enter on eternity unprepared.'

'I tell you what it is, ma'am,' she interrupted, in a very angry but suppressed voice, we are not of your way, and it's no good to come interloping among us ; it's like we'd be kind and friendly ever and out to the minister and Miss Nanny, seeing they are fosterers; but that's no reason we'd be so with foreigners-it's all along of the English, and of them over there in Parlyment that we are the ruined people this day.'

Though I could scarcely help being amused at this sally, I saw it so utterly useless to talk to a person of this kind, that merely expressing a hope that her grand-daughter would be better and kept quiet, I went out and proceeded on my walk, marvelling how such a woman could be related to Kate Conolly.

Well, I must not make my story too long. The time of John Tennisson's trial drew on; it was one of almost absorbing interest at the rectory. On the morning it took place, the rector and Mr. Hastings mounted their horses at an early hour, to attend it; three or four hours earlier Kate Conolly rose for the same purpose, from a sleepless bed, and looking very unequal to such an expedition, opened the little casement and commenced the task of dressing; bowed down by sorrow

-sorrow that lies so witheringly on a young, untried spirit—it was not accomplished with the happy carelessness of former days, when her lark-like voice breathed out its gratulation to the glorious sun, looking up from the bill that fronted her house. Pale, sighing, trembling, and endeavouring to pray, the poor girl performed it, and turning a sickening eye from the little looking glass which perhaps had not always been so disregarded, she was stepping from the door when a neighbour, with whom she had from infancy been a special favourite, came up: this woman had suspected her intention, and arisen herself on that account, but she met her now with all those expressions of surprise which are common in cases where no surprise is felt.

Musha, then, Kate, agra! is this yourself? and what is it you are doing up at this hour, aroon! and you that kept the bed so long?'

Don't you know, Peggy, that John is to be tried to-day, or did you forget it?' asked Kate reproachfully.

'Then it's not myself could be after forgetting it, Kate dear, and he almost all one as yourself. But be advised by me for all that, and stay at home, astore, quiet and easy. Sure, your going can't make one bit for or against him.'

'I know that, Peggy, but I'll go for all that, just to hear what he'll say for himself.'

'Ah, then, avick machree! what good will it do you if he speaks as fine as the parson himself, God bless him, if they hang him after all? And to be sure they'll do that-the blood-thirsty villains!1 But

1 I believe that under any circumstances few of the real Irish would allow that a person was justly condemned or executed.

you'll hear the last of it yourself the very first, and that will be some satisfaction anyhow.'

'It won't be any satisfaction to me, Peggy,' said poor Kate, which again aroused Peggy Morrow's compassion.

6

Ah, then, isn't it the unlucky that Rob is away with the cart since yester morn, carting hay for the squire, or sure it's not walking your lone you'd be.'

'I'm obliged to you, Peggy, but I don't mean to walk all the way; one of the neighbours from 'Kate seemed unable to articulate the name of the farm-preparations for taking possession of which had been the cause of all her misery; and she reiterated, 'One of the neighbours is going part of the road and will give me a lift.'

The rector had taken great pains to make out any circumstance which might appear in Tennisson's favour, but without success. One circumstance which in the confusion of his mind he seemed to have forgotten, he mentioned the day before his trial, which was, that after he parted from Delany he was joined by a man on horseback, who he believed was a priest, and who accompanied him nearly all the way to the village where he went. He could, however, give no description of the person, nor did he know whence he came; but he had had a good deal of conversation with him, had told him the business he was going about; but he had turned off by another road before they reached the village, and no clue could be obtained to find who he was.

Irish juries were not exactly constituted as they now in many instances are; but though political opinions might not have influenced the minds of the jury against Tennisson, the case was strongly made

out against him, and the known rancour which subsisted between the two parties to which the victim and the accused belonged, made it appear a not improbable occurrence.

Witnesses innumerable were ready to swear against him, and though the evidently vindictive feeling of the principal of these, O'Toole, operated rather as a caution in the reception of his testimony, it was not so with that of the people of the house, who proved the quarrel that had taken place, and the scemingly revengeful threats of the prisoner; and of others who saw them leave the town together, and proved the return of O'Toole, leaving them alone. It was to this house that the latter had returned with the tidings of Delany's death, and they naturally inquired instantly for his companion, on which a general exclamation was uttered that he was the murderer.

From the manner in which the body was found, it appeared that the death of the unhappy man had been caused by a sudden and unexpected blow: there was no appearance of any scuffle about the ground, which was moist from recent rain; a large discoloured mark on one temple had been left by the fatal blow, which was given by a heavy instrument. The body had been lifted from the spot where it fell, and dropped again nearly in the same place.

The prisoner had nothing to say in his defence, but persisted in a strenuous denial of the crime. After a long examination the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the judge, with evident emotion, pronounced sentence of death. The prisoner was deadly pale, but, before leaving the bar, summoned fortitude