ing to be a seventh son,
he availed himself of the credulity and ignorance of the people,
and soon added a pretended insight into futurity to his powers of
interpreting Pastorini, and all the catchpenny trash of the kind which
then circulated among the people. This imposture, in course of
time, produced its effect, Many, it is true, laughed at his impudent
assumptions, but on the other hand, hundreds were strongly impressed
with a belief in the mysterious and rhapsodical predictions which he
was in the habit of uttering. Among the latter class we may reckon
simple-hearted Jerry Sullivan and family, all of whom, Mave herself
included, placed the most religious confidence in the oracles he gave
forth. It was then with considerable agitation and a palpitating heart,
that on the day following that of Donnel's visit to her father's she
approached the Grey Stone, where, in the words of the prophet, she
should meet "the young man who was to bring her love, wealth, and
happiness, and all that a woman can wish to have with a man." The
agitation she felt, however, was the result of a depression that almost
amounted to despair. Her faithful heart was fixed but upon one alone,
and she knew that her meeting with any other could not, so far as she
was concerned, realize the golden visions of Donnel Dhu. The words,
however, could not be misunderstood; the first person she met, on the
right hand side of the way, after passing the Grey Stone, was to be
the individual; and when we consider her implicit belief in Donnel's
prophecy, contrasted with her own impressions and the state of mind in
which she approached the place, we may form a tolerably accurate notion
of what she must have experienced. On arriving within two hundred yards
or so of the spot mentioned, she observed in the distance, about a half
mile before her, a gentleman, on horseback, approaching her at rapid
speed. Her heart, on perceiving him, literally sank within her, and she
felt so weak as to be scarcely able to proceed.

"Oh! what," she at length asked herself, "would I not now give but for
one glance of young Condy Dalton! But it is not to be. The unfortunate
murdher of my uncle has prevented that for ever; although I can't get
myself to believe that any of the Daltons ever did it; but maybe that's
because I wish they didn't. The general opinion is, that his father is
the man that did it. May the Lord forgive them, whoever they are, that
took his life--for it was a bla