the glimpse of star and moon. I see the bosom heave; I see the
eyes flash full, then soften half-shut on some inward vision. For I am
never there at Bealloch-an-uarain, summer or spring, but the season, in
my thought, is that of my wife's first kiss, and it is always a pleasant
evening and the birds are calling in the dusk.

I plucked my lady's ivy with a cruel wrench, as one would pluck a sweet
delusion from his heart, and her fingers were so warm and soft as I gave
her the leaves! Then I turned to go.

"It is time we were home," I said, anxious now to be alone with my
vexation.

"In a moment," she said, plucking more ivy for herself; and then she
said, "Let us sit a little; I am wearied."

My courage came anew. "Fool!" I called myself. "You may never have the
chance again." I sat down by her side, and talked no love but told a
story.

It is a story we have in the sheilings among the hills, the tale of "The
Sea Fairy of French Foreland"; but I changed it as I went on, and made
the lover a soldier.

I made him wander, and wandering think of home and a girl beside the
sea. I made him confront wild enemies and battle with storms, I set him
tossing upon oceans and standing in the streets of leaguered towns, or
at grey heartless mornings upon lonely plains with solitude around, and
yet, in all, his heart was with the girl beside the sea.

She listened and flushed. My hero's dangers lit her eyes like lanthorns,
my passions seemed to find an echo in her sighs.

Then I pitied my hero, the wandering soldier, so much alone, so eager,
and unforgetting, till I felt the tears in my eyes as I imaged his
hopeless longing.

She checked her sighs, she said my name in the softest whisper, laid
her head upon my shoulder and wept. And then at last I met her quivering
lips.

CHAPTER XXXV.--FAREWELL.

On the morrow, John Splendid came riding up the street on his way to
the foreign wars. He had attired himself most sprucely; he rode a good
horse, and he gave it every chance to show its quality. Old women cried
to him from their windows and close-mouths. "Oh! _laochain,_" they said,
"yours be the luck of the seventh son!" He answered gaily, with the
harmless flatteries that came so readily to his lips always, they seemed
the very bosom's revelation. "Oh! women!" said he, "I'll be thinking of
your handsome sons, and the happy days we spent together, and wishing
myself soberly home with them when I am far away."

But not t