you please, 'tis still a wound; so pray explain how you came by it?"

"Pooh, what signifies! but since you must know-by the flashing of a pistol in my face, that I was endeavouring to teach Martin to fire at a mark with, in order that Eugene and I might have him as an assistant in our engagements, when we are hard pressed."

The uplifting of Miss Agnes Flora Judith's eyes evinced she was on the point of exclaiming-" What folly!" when the entrance of the surgeon, or barber-surgeon, as he should more properly be denominated, prevented her. His examination of the lieutenant's forehead quickly dissipated the alarm the accident he met with had occasioned.

Order restored, and Miss Agnes Flora Judith again collected, it suddenly occurred to her, as O'Rooke and her brother sat regaling themselves with some cold meat and a glass of grog, to make a confidant of the former, in the project she had in view, should she find that, without as

sistance, she could not carry it into effect, and of which indeed, from the manner in which it had been received by Grace, she had very little hope. From the aid she was aware he could give her, she could not help considering what had just happened, since it had ended in the manner it had done, as a lucky circumstance, as, but for seeing O'Rooke at the moment, she might not have thought of him, and there was not a person in the place that could be of such service to her in the affair.

Whilst she was thus making up her mind to let nothing prevent her from pursuing the plan of the immortalized sir Toby Tickletoby, Grace, all indignation at the barbarous idea it had suggested, had flown off, to make her complaint to Nell Tierney, the repository of most of her girlish grievances.

In giving utterance to her anger, however, it evaporated, and seating herself on the turf bank at the door of the cabin, she began gaily singing, whilst she amused herself with re-stringing an old necklace of

beads she had coaxed her aunt out of the preceding day, with a prospect before her on which the eye could never be tired expatiating-of hills, separated by dingles, mantled with thickets of oak, and watered by torrents, which heightened the effect of the most romantic scenery, by their incessant roar and glittering foam, while a beautiful valley lay stretched at their feet, through which rapidly flowed another mountain stream, now obscured by tufted trees and hillocks, then again bursting on the view, sparkling in the beams of a meridian sun, mellowing into the softest tints the verdure of the distant mountains.

CHAPTER III.

"Beneath th' umbrageous grove,
By kindly acts he often found

To recommend his love."

"The breach, though small at first, soon op'ning wide, In rushes folly with a full-moon tide."

In this romantic spot Grace was surprised, or rather joined, by her friend William, for she could not well be said to be surprised by the appearance of a person who was always on the watch to converse with her.

William Delamere was an orphan lad, who had been brought up in the neighbourhood, at the expence of an uncle in the East Indies, who had always signified his intention of sending for him, as soon as he was qualified by age and education to join him there. He had now nearly

completed his seventeenth year, and was in consequence daily looking to be called away, a circumstance that would have caused him but little regret, but for the pang he felt at the thought of being torn from Grace, for whose pretty face he had early conceived a boyish fancy, as he declared in the rhymes with which he had wounded the barks of the trees in her praise. She was indeed his inspiring muse, and had had her charms celebrated in all manner of ways by him, in sonnets, odes, and acrosticks, while he was continually making her some little present or other, and ready on all occasions to challenge any one to mortal combat who seemed inclined to rival him.

All this was very gratifying to the youthful vanity of Grace; but vanity was the only feeling that William, for some time, succeeded in interesting. At length his unceasing kindness and attention gained her right good will, and without being absolutely in love with him, she certainly became very fond of him.