never speaking to her. I had first espied the cart where it was stopped at the bend, at Owen-a-Slaivin's lane for Owen had hailed them, and come down to the road " to bid the little sthranger welcome. "We're maybe rough and ragged, little Missy," Owen said, following Nuala's wondering eyes, and looking down at himself, "but we're kindly. And ye've an uncle," he added firmly, " for all he mayn't look much, with a heart in him as kindly as May-day." At which the Widow's Pat hung his head, and blushed. And he said, "Thanky, Owen."

Ellen Burns came meeting the cart. She, to Pat's pride, kissed little Nuala, and presented her with a little bouquet of primroses. And John Burns knocked on the window, came shuffling out in a pair of cloth slippers Ellen had made for him, shook the wondering Nuala's little hand, and said, " Miss, ye are welcome to this locality."

Their progress henceforth was very slow. For the neighbors ran out of every house to greet "Pat's new niece." Susie Gallagher gave her a great hug that almost smothered her. Toal made her a stiff bow as he held her hand. And as his man Billy settled to his work again, after the welcome, he carolled:

Had I Per-yu and Mexeeco,

And goold and silver mines at will,
I'd make her heir, I do declare-
The bonny lass of Three-mile-hill.

Pat's little cabin had just two apartments-a kitchen and a room. He had his own bed in the kitchen-outshot to the left of the fire; and he had with the help of the Bummadier, fitted up the room for Nuala. Always Pat's cabin was scrupulously clean; but a week ago he had given it two coats of whitewash, within and without. Corney had concealed the black rafters and the black roof with a double coating of newspapers, in a manner so artistic as to give Pat unalloyed pleasure at the happy transformation, and the mechanic himself high pride. Religious prints, no less than seven, purchased from Pat the Pedlar at a penny each, were tacked at intervals around the walls" For I'll spare no expense, Corney, to make her wee room as pleasant as possible," Pat had said; and, "Right, Pathrick, no expense," from Corney. One large picture of St. Patrick, with his pastoral staff, driving before him a swarm of hissing serpents, whilst a handsome Gothic church arose out of a clump of bushes to his right-got the position of honor above the fireplace. The fireplace was, of course, a hearth. The window was one of four small panes, opening on a hinge; and a looking glass that cost ninepence several years ago, when Pat's mother, the Widow, lived, hung from a nail on the right splay. The patchwork quilt which Ellen Burns had made him afforded a very ornamental covering (in the eyes of all of us, no less than in Pat's) to the little

square bed in the corner-which bed, by the way, was a feather one, purchased from Mrs. Matthew McCourt, and to be gradually paid for by Pat and his spade. Corney Higarty, moreover, had, out of his own pocket, bought four delft figures, which he placed in appropriate positions around the room; and had crossed two old cutlasses beneath the picture of St. Patrick. And Pat had selected, on a former visit to the town, three rosecolored vases, which now stood on the board that answered for a mantel-one at each end, and one in the middle-and held Mayflowers. There was an old chest of drawers which answered both the purpose of chest of drawers and tableplaced opposite to the bed, with a chair by it. The door, inside and outside, was freshly painted -by Corney-the mantel, the window, the bedstead, the chair, the chest of drawers. To my mind, as to that of the many admiring neighbors who had thronged to inspect it during the past few days, it was a luxuriously fitted apartment, worthy of any little lady in the land.

When Nuala sat by Pat's now also her own -kitchen fire, holding her hands to the fir-blaze and gazing searchingly at the neighbors who sat around, the latter all acknowledged that she was a little lady. Nuala, I remember, sat on a creepystool by one side of the fireplace; and Pat, who sat nearly opposite, sometimes watching her, and sometimes watching the faces of those who watched her, was bursting with pride for her. And I watched Pat and was proud for him.

The neighbors, as they came, brought some little present-butter, eggs, potatoes, oat-bread; because as Pat had had no woman about the house, and no cow (for he had not any land except what the cabin stood upon, and a few square yards before and behind it), and no hens, and lived as he did by the hire of his spade, he was very properly supposed to need just such attentions now. Pat beamed his heartfelt thanks upon all; and as he presented the comers to Nuala, was grateful to Corney for rectifying his own want of resource by adding in each case such eulogistic qualifications as "Keeps the warmest house in the parish," "Gets a penny a pound more for her butter than any other goes into Donegal market," "The cleanest fought man atween here and where he lives," "Was the snuggest-stepped girl-when she was a girl-entered the Oiliegh Chapel," "His bait never swung a caman," "Makes the best brogues in the baronry," which, if it enlightened little Nuala not much, brought Pat their requital in the blushing gratification of the eulogized.

"Ye'll like us better, daughter, when ye know us more," Corney said to Nuala.

"I like you very much," Nuala said, with a shake of her curls, and a slight smile. "And I like Uncle Pat." Here she arose and came and stood between his knees, and laid a little hand on each of his shoulders. "And I think I like every body."

"God bliss ye, dear," Pat said, stroking her curls.

"With yer Uncle Pat," Corney said, "ye'll be as comfortable as a cockroach in a chimley-corner."

"Though your Uncle Patrick's roof-tree be low, and his table humble, happiness has ever been domiciled with him," said Master Whorisky, tilting her chin, " and you will find it, Sunny-eyes."

She smiled delightedly at the Master, for he had won her confidence and her regard when he had first introduced himself to her with one of his own ponderous speeches-how much of which ponderosity was serious, and how much facetious, no one but himself ever seemed to know. With only a little struggle on her part he drew her to him, and lifted her upon his knees, Pat smiling with proud delight.

"Your Uncle Patrick," the Master went on, "had, for a grander cycle of years than I care to say, successfully resisted the wiles of all women, and Kitty Kierans of the Alt Mor-but, despite his wariness, a woman has made his house her home. We, his neighbors, rejoice in his downfall."

As every one of us knew well that Kitty Kierans, the dressmaker-Kitty Cut she was called