must then have been so happy and free-hearted in our unconsciousness, and how heavyhearted and miserable we all were to-day!

And in my misery I blamed everybody, beginning with the King of England and ending with myself. I suppose I excepted Kevin, for this opposition about him had roused in me a perverse determination to take his part against any one or every one.

All alone on the wide wild moorlands, nursing fierce thoughts on the top of a gate! My face was turned westward where the sun was letting itself down lower and lower towards the sea border.

It was a very short warning which brought the belief in my utter loneliness to an abrupt end. There was a sudden sound of closely approaching footsteps. A strangely familiar voice called my name. Turning, to my unbounded surprise, I found Roderick coming towards me-Roderick and a stranger. Before I had recovered my senses Roderick had lifted me down from the gate, and with much laughter on his part, and many exclamations of amazement on mine, we had a

joyous meeting. "Why how is it you

did not

get my letter?" he asked. "I wrote a week ago to say I was coming home on leave and that my friend Captain Dudley would come with me. I suppose I need hardly tell you, Dudley, this is my sister."

They explained they had left their post chaise and had struck off by short cuts across the fields on foot. "Of course I was sure you had come out on purpose to meet us," Roderick said, "it is a pity you spoilt the illusion. I thought," he continued, as we walked on, "I thought that in these uncertain warlike times I should like to come home and see you all once more, before having to join the fighting. Well, how are you all at home?"

"Oh, we are all quite well"-and there I stopped short, remembering that Roderick could know nothing of what had happened yesterday.

"You say that with a very long facewhat is the matter?"

It seemed a little difficult, just at first, to tell Roderick in the presence of a stranger, but the next moment I had reminded myself that there was nothing of which to be

ashamed, and ignoring his last question, said

"Kevin is not at home."

"Why, where has he gone?" asked Roderick with some surprise.

"He has gone to help the country," answered I, not quite knowing how else to turn the phrase.

"And how does he propose doing that ?" inquired Roderick.

"To fight for it, if need be."

Roderick's surprise increased tenfold; his friend too, seemed to listen with interest. "You never mean to say Kevin is going to enlist ? Is he volunteering into the Yeomanry, or how?"

"I said he was going to fight for the country-not against it."

"Well, is not that what Captain Dudley and I are going to do, if necessary? What is the difference?"

"You don't understand," I said impatiently, "Kevin is taking the part of the people-the people who wish for freedomit is them he has gone to help."

Roderick stopped still, and looked as though a thunderbolt had fallen.

"Kevin gone to join the rebels?" he exclaimed aghast. They both waited breathlessly for my next words.

"No-yes-if you call them rebels."

Never in all my life have I seen Roderick look as he looked at that moment. Roderick -usually so easy-going, so light-hearted— stood shocked, dismayed, dumbfoundered.

"It is true," I added softly; and then, angry at the ring of regret in my own voice, broke the silence which followed with an im"And why not?"

petuous cry,

Of course I had never expected that Roderick would be able to see from Kevin's point of view. But I scarcely knew whether at that moment to be most sorry for, or most angry with him. I could have wished he would not have shown before a stranger, what were so transparently his sensations on learning the news. Another against Kevin and Kevin's creed ! One more to call honour shame," and glory "disgrace."

Evidently Roderick was not careful what he said before his friend, nor how much he left him out of the conversation, for all the rest of the way he talked to me about Kevin, asking and making me tell him everything.

"We were talking," he said, "only a few minutes before we met you, of the dark prospect there seems to be before the country before we can look for happier days."

"Happier days!" I echoed scornfully, "I was thinking just as you came up, that if only the King of England, and England, and all the English-every one (excepting only our stepmother), could be swept clean from off the face of the earth, one might begin to believe in happier days for Ireland."

Captain Dudley began to laugh, though I failed to see any cause for diversion, and Roderick, in spite of himself, laughed too.

"Take care what you say !" he said, "my captain is an Englishman, born and bred!"

Still I was a good deal less startled to think of what I had been saying than to learn that an Englishman-whose very name I hate-had come into our midst.

"He is an Englishman," repeated Roderick as though I were deaf.

"Well, I cannot help it," I answered ruefully," and I cannot unsay what I have said."

"I should not believe you if you did," laughed Captain Dudley, "unless in