sturbed state.
Folks are talking in a suspicious way."

Mark thought of the midnight march he had witnessed; but said nothing.

"There's a fever, besides, in the house, and wha can tell the next to
tak' it. The Lord be mercifu' to us!" added he gravely, as if the latter
thought approached somewhat too close on a temptation of Providence.

"If she's like what I remember her as a child," replied Mark, "your plan
would be a bad one for its object. Tell her the place is a ruin, and
she'd give the world to see it for bare curiosity; say, there was a
likelihood of a rebellion, and she would risk her life to be near it;
and as for a fever, we never were able to keep her out of the cabins
when there was sickness going. Faith, I believe it was the danger, and
not the benevolence, of the act charmed her."

"You are no' far wrang. I mind her weel--she was a saucy cutty; and I
canna forget the morning she gave me a bunch o' thistles on my birth
day, and ca'ed it a 'Scotch bouquey.'"

"You had better read the letter in any case," said Mark, as he presented
the epistle. Sir Archy took it, and perused it from end to end without a
word; then laying it open on his knee, he said--

"The lassie's heart is no' far wrang, Mark, depend upon it. Few call up
the simple memories o' childish days, if they have no' retained some of
the guileless spirit that animated them. I wad like to see her mysel',"
said he, after a pause. "But what have we here in the postscript?"--and
he read aloud the following lines:--

"I have too good a recollection of a Carrig-na-curra household, to make
any apology for adding one to the number below stairs, in the person of
my maid, Mademoiselle Hortense, from whose surprise and astonishment at
our Irish mountains I anticipate a rich treat. She is a true Parisian,
who cannot believe in any thing outside the Boulevards. What will she
think of Mrs. Branagan and Kerry O'Leary?--and what will they think of
her?"

"Lord save us, Mark, this is an awfu' business; a French waiting woman
here! Why, she might as weel bring a Bengal tiger! I protest I'd rather
see the one than the other."

"She'll not stay long; make your mind easy about her; nor will Kate
either, if she need such an attendant."

"True enough, Mark, we maun let the malady cure itsel'; and so, I
suppose, the lassie must even see the nakedness o' the land wi' her ain
eyes, though I'd just as soon we could 'put the cover on the parritch,'
as the laird sa