the continued
residence of the kind Mr Finlayson at the castle. He was so lively, so
full of conversation and anecdotes, so kind and judicious at the same
time. He raised their spirits more than any one else could have done.
A young man would have been out of place. Even kind, gentle Miss
O'Reilly, when she came over, though she talked very pleasantly, could
do little to animate them. Mr Jamieson performed his part as well as
he could, but he was not very animated; he was more inclined to speak in
a serious than lively strain.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Happily human beings are so constituted, that grief with few, especially
with the young, lasts long. After a time, Lady Nora and her cousin
recovered their usual spirits, and began to ride about the country as
before. Their chief pleasure was to visit those they had long known,
and to extend their search of others who might require relief. The
surest means for those who are themselves in distress of obtaining
comfort is to do good to their fellow-creatures. Several times they
paid a visit to the old fishwife, Widow O'Neil. She seemed to have
grown more hardy and wiry than ever. It was wonderful what exertions
she could go through. She often had the assistance of her brother
Shane, who was, however, advancing in life, and not so active as before,
while she appeared to have retained all her strength and activity. They
remarked, whenever they paid her a visit, the delight she took in
speaking of her long-lost son. She never failed to tell them that she
had seen him in her dreams. She knew, she declared, that he was
thinking of her, and though she could not say why he was detained, he
was, she felt certain, endeavouring to come back to her. Sometimes she
thought he was a slave in some foreign land; sometimes that he had been
cast away on some desert island, and had to live there, unable to make
his escape, and sometimes that he was in prison. She said she knew he
was in far distant lands, as that alone would have kept him from her.
They could not help being struck by the deep, the intense love and
confidence in him which the old woman always expressed for her son,
though they naturally had considerable doubts whether, if he really was
alive, he could feel the same for her.

"He was a handsome youth," observed Lady Sophy to her cousin, "but there
was a wild, daring look in his eye, and he was a lad who, when once
away, and having obtained a better position in li