ubts, of harassing suspense,
would have been spared her, and the first tempestuous burst of sorrow
having passed over, her chastened spirit might have recovered its tone,
and her life have been spared. But the mistaken kindness which concealed
from her the dreadful truth, instead of relieving her mind of a burden
which it could not support, laid upon it a weight of horrible fears
and doubts as to the affection of O'Mara, compared with which even the
certainty of his death would have been tolerable.

One evening I had just seated myself beside a cheerful turf fire, with
that true relish which a long cold ride through a bleak and shelterless
country affords, stretching my chilled limbs to meet the genial
influence, and imbibing the warmth at every pore, when my comfortable
meditations were interrupted by a long and sonorous ringing at the
door-bell evidently effected by no timid hand.

A messenger had arrived to request my attendance at the Lodge--such was
the name which distinguished a small and somewhat antiquated building,
occupying a peculiarly secluded position among the bleak and heathy
hills which varied the surface of that not altogether uninteresting
district, and which had, I believe, been employed by the keen and hardy
ancestors of the O'Mara family as a convenient temporary residence
during the sporting season.

Thither my attendance was required, in order to administer to a deeply
distressed lady such comforts as an afflicted mind can gather from the
sublime hopes and consolations of Christianity.

I had long suspected that the occupant of this sequestered, I might
say desolate, dwelling-house was the poor girl whose brief story we are
following; and feeling a keen interest in her fate--as who that had ever
seen her DID NOT?--I started from my comfortable seat with more eager
alacrity than, I will confess it, I might have evinced had my duty
called me in another direction.

In a few minutes I was trotting rapidly onward, preceded by my guide,
who urged his horse with the remorseless rapidity of one who seeks by
the speed of his progress to escape observation. Over roads and through
bogs we splashed and clattered, until at length traversing the brow of
a wild and rocky hill, whose aspect seemed so barren and forbidding that
it might have been a lasting barrier alike to mortal sight and step, the
lonely building became visible, lying in a kind of swampy flat, with a
broad reedy pond or lake stretching away