elter. It simply consisted of a
few sticks laid up against the side of a ditch; over these sticks were
thrown a few scraws--that is, the sward of the earth cut thin; in the
inside was the remnant of some loose straw, the greater part having been
taken away either for bedding or firing.

When Mave entered, she started at the singular appearance of Sarah. From
the first moment her person had been known to her until the present, she
had never seen her look half so beautiful. She literally lay stretched
upon a little straw, with no other pillow than a sod of earth under that
rich and glowing cheek, while her raven hair had fallen down, and added
to the milk-white purity of her shining neck and bosom.

"Father of Mercy!" exclaimed Mave, mentally, "how will she live--how
can she live here? An' what will become of her? Is she to die in this
miserable way in a Christian land?"

Sarah lay groaning with pain, and starting from time to time with the
pangs of its feverish inflictions. Mave spoke not when she entered the
shed, being ignorant whether Sarah was asleep or awake; but a very few
moments soon satisfied her that the unhappy and deserted girl was under
the influence of delirium.

"I won't break my promise, father, but I'll break my heart; an' I can't
even give her warnin'. Ah! but it's threacherous--an' I hate that. No,
no--I'll have no hand in it--manage it your own way--it's threacherous.
She has crossed my happiness,you say--ay, an' there you're right--so
she has--only for her I might--amn't I as handsome, you say, an' as
well shaped--haven't I as white a skin?--as beautiful hair, an' as good
eyes?--people say betther--an' if I have, wouldn't he come to love me in
time?--only for her--or if there wasn't that bar put between us. You're
right, you're right. She's the cause of all my sufferin' an' sorrow. She
is--I agree--I agree--down with her--out o' my way with her--I hate the
thoughts of her--an' I'll join it--for mark me, father, wicked I may
be, but more miserable I can't--so I'll join you in it. What need I care
now?"

Mave felt her heart sink, and her whole being disturbed with a heavy
sense of terror, as Sarah uttered the incoherent rhapsody which we have
just repeated. The vague, but strongly expressed warnings which she
had previously heard from Nelly, and the earnest admonitions which that
person had given her to beware of evil designs on the part of Donnel Dhu
and his daughter, now rushed upon her mind; an