is a fine fellow, and in your hands he shall become finer still. Mary," he added, earnestly, "do you see these two valentines I hold in my hand?" "Oh, Noel! how wasteful! how ungrateful! What must Lady Marguerita think of you?" Mary exclaimed. He had torn the costly valentine to pieces. "I want to prove to you," he said, "that I care not for her who sent it." "But she is so good, and so beautiful!" "I admire her; I respect her. I do not love her. I never can love her as- "he was about adding, "I love you," only he remembered that Sir Rutherford Everton was to visit Hampstead at eleven o'clock the next morning. Noel d'Auvergne's strange conduct at this interview decided the answer which Mary Leyne was determined upon giving to the persevering and faithful Baronet. Colonel O'Malley-he had dropped when he arrived in America the family name of Oranmore-was recalled again to New York from his military post in the Far West, and shortly after his return he was raised to the rank of General. General! He had obtained one of the objects of his life's earliest ambition, namely, to be styled a "General," and to enjoy the emoluments attached to that title of high military rank. But he was lifted up thereto Ee in a manner how different from his former expectations! Now that he had in very truth attained to it, how little he cared for it in reality! How changed entirely he was within himself these latter days! Subdued, contrite, ennobled by his repentance, he lived, as nearly as it was allowed him to do so, an unobtrusive life, and mingled but little in American society. He felt no desire henceforth to shine in social circles, to strut through ball-rooms, big with his imaginary importance. Often at evening time, or early in the fresh gay morning, those who wandered thither bent upon a similar pious mission, saw the bowed and white-haired man standing by a green grave, shadowed over at times by a simple Cross. "When I die," he said to the sexton one day, "I am to be buried alongside this grave!" And to ensure the realization of his wishes, he bought the ground and built a vault thereon beforehand. Much of his leisure time he devoted to the alleviation of the sufferings of the poorer classes of the Irish people who disembarked from their own land upon the quays of New York. He had compassion for them, and we hope that his charity covered a multitude of sins. He was sorry to see them coming. Alas! in our fair island a noble race will not remain ! Our people are dwindling down in Ireland. We have a generous soil to give us bread; we have a fair sky above us, though sometimes a tearful one; we have intellect to enable us to hold our own amongst the races of the earth. But our brethren and bosom-friends abandon us, making way for strangers to light their household fires on the cold hearths of our fathers. It is a pity that so fair an isle should be deserted by millions of its people. What is the consequence? A cloud has arisen in the West whose shadow is thrown Eastward. And Brother Jonathan likes the look of it. There is one consolation: Ireland, like her Divine Master, is poor, and goes forth into the wide, wide world as His Apostle. For awhile God has afflicted her, because acceptable men are tried in the furnace of humiliation. But is it nothing that when other nations have fallen away and forgotten Him, she has through all those centuries been true? Shall her glory come when Civilization sheaths the sword and listens to Nestor? Time will tell. It was about this period that General O'Malley fell fatally ill. Upon his last bed of sickness we will leave him for awhile, and return to Mary Leyne and that gentleman who is frequently her theme of thought-Noel d'Auvergne. CHAPTER XXII. THE FAVOURITE ACTRESS. "A very woman: one in whom The spring-time of her childish years Though knowing well that life hath room For many blights and many tears." LOWELL. A "Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eyes; MILTON. T last Mary knew that he loved her. The glad knowledge was beyond doubt, although Noel uttered no sweet-toned words in confirmation of her happy belief that she, and she alone, was nearest and most precious to him, at length, of living women. And he, on his part, did he not understand that she loved him, and him alone? He was sure of it. She had refused the wealthy Baronet again, and for the last time, since she sent him from her feet with the mutual understanding that he was to kneel there a suppliant no more. It was in this way Noel and Mary were situated : Noel d'Auvergne had two wherefrom to choose, namely, Lady Marguerita Dashbrook and Mary Leyne. Mary Leyne also had two strings to her bowto use a familiar phrase-Noel and Sir Rutherford Everton. Lady Marguerita, there was no mistake about it, was decidedly the better match for Noel d'Auvergne in the eyes of those whose object it is to raise themselves in the world by hook or by crook. With reference to Mary Leyne, there was of course no comparison in the same eyes between Noel-be he ever so clever, and, as a young barrister, ever so risingand Sir Rutherford Everton, the respected owner of stately Waterbrook Castle, and who was in the undisturbed enjoyment moreover of eleven or twelve or thirteen thousand a year. Sir Rutherford also, be it known to all those whom it may not concern, could trace back his forefathers to the period of the Conquest, and we know not whether aristocracy has not got its aristocracy. It is something is it not? -to be in a position which shall enable you to prove that one of your sires was made head-cook to William Rufus! Even in the ritualism of Royalty, what is the Gold-Stick-in-Waiting, if it was only his grandfather—the son of a cook, it may be-got perched for six months on England's woolsack, after |