that the poor
people, especially the females, had conceived a notion, and not a very
unreasonable one, too, that a large crop of hair not only predisposed
them to the fever which then prevailed, but rendered their recovery from
it more difficult. These notions, to be sure, resulted naturally enough
from the treatment which medical men found it necessary to adopt in
dealing with it--every one being aware that in order to relieve the
head, whether by blister or other application, it is necessary to remove
the hair. Be this, however, as it may, it is our duty to state here that
the traffic we allude to was very general, and that many a lovely and
luxuriant crop came under the shears of the pedlars who then strolled
through the country.

"Afther all, aunt," said Hanlon, after having bidden her good morrow,
"I'm afraid it was a foolish weakness to depend upon a dhrame. I see
nothing clear in the business yet. Here now we have got the Box, an'
what are we the nearer to the discovery?"

"Well," replied his aunt, for in that relation she stood to him, "is it
nothing to get even that? Sure we know now that it was his, an' do you
think that M'Gowan, or as they call him, the Black Prophet, would be in
sich a state to get it--an' his wife, too, it seems--unless there was
some raison on their part beyond the common, to come at it?"

"It's a dark business altogether; but arn't we thrown out of all trace
of it in the mane time? Jist when we thought ourselves on the straight
road to the discovery, it turns out to be another an' a different
murdher entirely--the murdher of one Sullivan."

At this moment, the pedlar, who had been dressing himself in another
small apartment, made, his appearance, just in time to catch his
concluding words.

"An' now," Hanlon added, "it appears that Sullivan's body has been found
at last. The Black Prophet and Body Duncan knows all about the murdher,
an' can prove the act home to Condy Dalton, and identify the body, they
say, besides."

The pedlar looked at the speakers with a face of much curiosity and
interest, then mused for a time, and at length took a turn or two about
the floor, after which he sat down and began to drum his fingers on the
little table which had been placed for breakfast.

"Afther I get my breakfast," he said at length, "I'll thank you to let
me know what I have to pay. It's not my intention to stop undher this
roof any longer; I don't think I'd be overly safe."

"Safe!--arr