us, so we have!"

And with a caper elicited by the thought, he danced down to the kitchen to enquire-" What's the rason Peggy made the noise so early that mornin' ?"

CHAPTER V.

SHORTLY after Reily's disappearance from the breakfast parlour, Eliza saw Belinda and her father coming up the avenue. At a nearer approach, Belinda's face seemed much more than on the previous night, to wear the likeness it had borne in days gone by, Deep sadness, rather than high and strange excitement, was now its prevailing expression; and her jet-black eye, though still alight with a portion of its recent meaning, was less lurid in its depths than she had last seen it. "Perhaps,” thought Eliza, "the softening influence of nature has relieved my poor friend, by calling forth some weeping bursts of passion."

At

Sir William Judkin had now been some days from home. parting from Eliza he had named a time for returning, but came not as punctually as was usual with him. Our heroine was anxious

for his arrival. Apart from the pleasure of seeing him, great in anticipation as that was, she wished that Belinda might judge, from his presence, what little ground appeared for her fears of his constancy and honour. Eliza also longed to have her admit that Sir William was, in every respect, worthy of a lady's love, or, according to Malvolio, "worth a lady's eye."

A very slight hint served to send Nanny the Knitter, to inquire the cause of his absence. He could not return for another week. Particular business, connected, in fact, with the arrangement of part of his late uncle's embarrassments, unavoidably detained him.

During this listless pause, although Eliza and Belinda took many walks together, they were not so frequently in each other's company as they had been at school. The visitor seemed to prefer solitary rambles, and when confined to the house, generally, excepting at meal-times, sat alone in her chamber. Eliza's spirits grew saddened and depressed. Her lover's absence, and the morbid shadow thrown round her by her friend's melancholy, jointly produced the effect. For, since their conversation upon the night of her arrival at Hartley Court, deep melancholy and reserve, instead of her first

That

agitating vehemence, continued to characterize Belinda. singular conversation was not resumed. Eliza sought not its renewal, and her friend never by a single word alluded to it.

For some days beyond a week, Belinda St. John had been at Hartley Court, without bringing joy or gratification to her youthful companion, or without making a friend around her. At Tim Reily's showing, notwithstanding his mistress's orders and caution, the servants deemed her "flighty," or "cracked." Waving this opinion, the meanest among them revolted at her unbending, imperious coldness. She was attended by them merely as their master's guest, without any inclination to do her a kindness.

Sir Thomas Hartley still conversed with her on topics generally supposed out of the range of those with which it is sought to entertain a young lady. But her rayless gloom of manner had evidently destroyed his first interest. Miss Alice absolutely dreaded. her stern brow it made the amiable old lady wince, she knew not why. It must be supposed, that all this could not escape the observation of the person most interested. Yet, she did not seem to notice any thing. She was always wrapped up in herself, or, to the exclusion of every exterior interest, employed with her own thoughts.

Upon the eleventh night of her visit, (Eliza remembered it well.) our heroine had retired to her chamber, when Nanny the Knitter sent up, from the kitchen, a respectful request to be permitted an audience. The boon was granted. With many duckings, and much dusting of her feet with the tail of her cloak, the old woman entered the chamber, and, as if conscious that nothing appertaining to, or at all bringing to mind the other sex, should presume to appear there, she took off and left outside the door her foxy masculine hat.

"Sit down, Nanny; you look tired," said Eliza.

"Thankee kindly, Miss Eliza, my honey. Wid your purty lave, I'll just plank myself on my hunkers, the way I'm in the fashion o' doin', and the way that's most fitther for my sort, in the same room wid one o' the quality."

Eliza concluded, from Nanny's face, that she had something of importance to communicate. But even Nanny's preparatory proceedings would have intimated as much. After having "planked herself on her hunkers," she deliberately took out her knitting apparatus, which, with her, in every presence, and under every circumstance, was as necessary a preliminary to chat, as were his few inches of thread to the forensic orator mentioned in the

E

"Spectator." If he could not properly twist the thread of his plain cause without simultaneously twisting his pack-thread, Nanny also, should be permitted to knit her stockings and her narrative together.

With ominous rapidity, Eliza's thoughts flew from Nanny's solemn preparation, and her mysterious countenance, to Belinda's prognostic that her love would prove unfortunate. Fearful that the question might produce the mention of Sir William's name in some way distressing or dishonouring to herself, she dreaded to demand Nanny's business. At length Nanny broke silence.

"What I have to say, Miss Eliza, my pet, had be betther tould betwixt yourself an' myself. An' so, you may all as well send the good little girl to her bed." "Why, Nanny, this is a What can be the matter?

solemn and formal preface you make. Does it relate to me?"

"It does, an' it doesn't, my honey pet; an' there's every word o the thruth for you. Don't let it bother you-now," after she had momentarily contemplated Eliza's features-"there's nothin' in it about your Father, Sir Thomas, the blessins on him. Or about Square Talbot, that we wish well, though we want no more rubbins wid him. Or.about Sir William, the darlin' of a boy. Not a word in the world. It's all about women: an' the most about one sart'n woman, or lady-I don't know which is the right name to call her."

As soon as, in her own way, Nanny had come to the name she knew Eliza thought of, that young lady felt much relieved. And now she rang her bell told her maid, who appeared in answer to it, that she could dispense with her for the night,-Nanny was going to tell her a story; and, as it grew late, the girl need not remain up. Accordingly, Nanny and her protegée continued alone, without fear of interruption.

"An' now, Miss Eliza, my honey, would it be in coorse o' manners to ax what kind of a lady she is that come to see you, here, in your good Father's house ?"

"First-why do you put such a question, Nanny?" asked Eliza, in mingled surprise and perturbation.

"Faix, an' indeed, my honey pet, I have a good rason to ax you, the rason I have isn't out o' curosity, but all out of love an' duty to your pretty sef. The same I'm in duty bound to have. But-first,it's what I'd want is to know if you're sart'n sure of the sort she is ?"

"Well, Nanny, to indulge your good wishes towards me, and while I am convinced you would not lightly intrude on this occa

sion, I admit that I know little more of Miss St. John than that she has been my school-acquaintance, and friend,—and always supposed to be of high birth and blood. Farther-though her manners certainly bear out the last fact-I, to this hour, know nothing." "That's not the thing I was for axin', Miss Eliza, my honey." "What, then, did your question import?"

"May I never do an ill turn, this holy an' blessed night,"Nanny bent over her knitting, and spoke in a very low whisper"but she's either moon-sthruck then, or, I'm afraid, mad, out-an'out-or else, don't be angry, my pet-ould Nanny wouldn't speak without rason-a bould woman. Lord keep us from cratures o' the kind, an' from all evil doins!"

"Take care, Nanny! The young lady is my friend-is in my Father's house. You astonish me-shock me!"

"Oh, faix, an' as I'm a lump of a sinner, Miss Eliza, my honey, blessed be the Holy Name! that's the way I was in, my own sef, wid what I seen, on the head of it."

"Tell your story, Nanny. But, remember, carefully and faithfully."

"That I mayn't sin, Miss Eliza, but you'll have it, as thrue an' as clane as if I was on my marrow-bones fornent the priest.

"It was ere-a-last night, my pet,-an' sure that was the last night o' the month, of all nights in the year,—I was at Andy Maher's wake, rest his poor sowl!”—

66

Nanny, you seem determined to try my patience," broke in Eliza, too disturbed to be a patient listener.

"Ntchu, ntchu"-(we cannot find better orthography for the smack of Nanny's tongue against her palate).

"Ntchu, Ntchu,-och, sure there's nothin' farther from my thoughts, Miss Eliza, my honey, as in duty bound to you and yours,-an' to yoursef, above all. Bud, my ould tongue has sich a way of clack, clack, ever an' always. An' I'm so cooramuch,* sittin' here; so purty an' so snug, bless the good providhers! Well, to come sthraight upon the thing we're discoorsin' about. It was apast twelve in the night when I left the wake, Miss Eliza, my honey. I was going to take my bed at Shaun-a-gow's that night. Shaun, himsef, was at the wake, an' so I knew I could get in. Whether or no, it's seldom's the time for this while agone, you'll get them in their honest, quiet beds, at Shaun-a-gow's they do have roarin' work at the anvil, in the forge, at night, more nor by day.

*Exceedingly comfortable.

The boys comes there, I'm tould, to get wicked weapons made for themsefs out of ould iron of all sorts. The times is growin' bad, I'm afeard, Miss Eliza, my pet, for us poor women: there'll be bad doins goin' on, as sure as this needle is runnin' to and fro'-the Lord purtect the poor, an' the wake, an' the forlorn! But I'll tell you all about these doins, another time, when we'll have the night to oursefs an' nothin' else to spake of.-Ntchu, ntchu ;-well.— As I was thramping to Shaun-a-gow's, just as I come widin a little sthretch o' the aveny gate, below, you know, Miss, I seldom or never makes much noise wid the way o' walkin' I have-"

Eliza nodded assent.

"The moon was a late one, Miss Eliza, my honey. It wasn't high up enongh to shine down sthraight; but the light of it was here an' there, whenever nothin' was to the fore to shet it out. You know there's a little wood, like, runnin' down to the river, that wouldn't let it shine through; an' so the road, at that place, was purty dark; an' then the aveny threes gave a help to make it a bit darker. But, through the arch that's fornent the gate, it come bould, as white as any sheet, an' looked quare an' odd. 'Well,' says I to mysef, 'isn't it a curos way the moon shines over that one place? Its purty,' says I, ' to look on it, when a body is in a right mind, an' not afeard, at sich a time o' the night. But'-says I, agin, stoppin' talkin', 'what's that goin' through it?' an' I stopped the feet, too, to look closer. I seen a tall woman, Miss Eliza, comin' over the stile at the side o' the aveny gate, an' she crossed right along the sheet o' moonshine, and she went undher the arch. At the first look, it was, for all the world, as like a ghost as one egg is like another—a ghost that ud be warmin' itself in moonlight thracks, after comin' out o' the could darkness that was round about it, every where. I often heard o' ghosts; an', sure an' sure, there's sich things, they say,-the praises be for ever given, I never seen one yet, though I thravelled often by night, in the most lonesome places. But, a ghost's foot doesn't give a sound-not as much as my own foot, that gives so little-an' I hard the stamp, stamp, through the silence acrass the road. For I was nigh hand, Miss Eliza, my honey. 'That's the lady that come to see Miss Eliza,' says I; she's cracked in the brains, they say, an' goes about this way to be spakin' her raumaush* to the moon, as her likes has the fashion o' doin', the world over.” ”

"Can this, indeed, be possible ?" ejaculated Eliza, much moved. "May you not have mistaken the person, Nanny ?"

* Nonsense.