e a friend in the house, who might aid
them in effecting a quiet entrance, and by unloading or wetting the
fire-arms, neutralize the resistance which they might otherwise expect.

Sarah's excitement and distraction, however, resulting from her last
interview with young Dalton, giving as it did, a fatal blow to her
passion and her hopes, vehement and extraordinary as they were, threw
her across her father's path at the precise moment when her great but
unregulated spirit, inflamed by jealousy and reckless from despair,
rendered her most accessible to the wily and aggravating arguments with
which he tempted and overcame her. Thus did he, so far as human means
could devise, or foresight calculate, provide for the completion of two
plots instead of one.

It is true, Mave Sullivan was not left altogether without being
forewarned. Nobody, however, had made her acquainted with the peculiar
nature of the danger that was before her. Nelly M'Gowan, as she was
called, had strongly cautioned her against both Donnel and Sarah, but
then Nelly herself was completely in the dark as to the character of the
injury against which she warned her, so that her friendly precautions
were founded more upon the general and unscrupulous profligacy of
Donnel's principles, and his daughter's violence, than upon any
particular knowledge she possessed of her intentions towards her. Mave's
own serene and innocent disposition was such in fact as to render her
not easily impressed by suspicion; and our readers may have perceived,
by the interview which took place between her and Sarah, that from the
latter, she apprehended no injury.

It was on the following day after that interview, about two o'clock,
that while she was spreading some clothes upon the garden hedge, during
a sickly gleam of sunshine, our friend the pedlar made his appearance,
and entered her father's house. Mave having laid her washing before the
sun, went in and found him busily engaged in showing his wares, which
consisted principally of cutlery and trinkets. The pedlar, as she
entered, threw a hasty glance at her, perceived that she shook down her
luxuriant hair, which had been disarranged by a branch of thorn that
was caught in it while stretching over the hedge. She at once recognized
him, and blushed deeply; but he seemed altogether to have forgotten her.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "well, that I may be blest, but it's many a long day
since I seen such a head o' hair as that! Holy St.