the very
loaded carts themselves,--all interested Miss Baby, whose eye roved from
the shore to the Shannon, recognizing with a practised eye every house upon
its banks, and every barque that rocked and pitched beneath the gale.

"Well, this is pleasant to look out at," said she, at length, and after the
storm had lasted for above an hour, without evincing any show of abatement;
"but what's to become of _me?_"

Now that was the very question I had been asking myself for the last twenty
minutes without ever being able to find the answer.

"Eh, Charley, what's to become of me?"

"Oh, never fear; one thing's quite certain, you cannot leave this in such
weather. The river is certainly impassable by this time at the ford, and to
go by the road is out of the question; it is fully twelve miles. I have it,
Baby; you, as I've said before, can't leave this, but I can. Now, I'll go
over to Gurt-na-Morra, and return in the morning to bring you back; it will
be fine by that time."

"Well, I like your notion. You'll leave me all alone here to drink tea, I
suppose, with your friend Mrs. Magra. A pleasant evening I'd have of it;
not a bit--"

"Well, Baby, don't be cross; I only meant this arrangement really for your
sake. I needn't tell you how very much I'd prefer doing the honors of my
poor house in person."

"Oh, I see what you mean,--more propers. Well, well, I've a great deal to
learn; but look, I think its growing lighter."

"No, far from it; it's only that gray mass along the horizon that always
bodes continual rain."

As the prospect without had little cheering to look upon, we sat down
beside the fire and chatted away, forgetting very soon in a hundred mutual
recollections and inquiries, the rain and the wind, the thunder and the
hurricane. Now and then, as some louder crash would resound above our
heads, for a moment we would turn to the window, and comment upon the
dreadful weather; but the next, we had forgotten all about it, and were
deep in our confabulations.

As for my fair cousin, who at first was full of contrivances to pass
the time,--such as the piano, a game at backgammon, chicken hazard,
battledoor,--she at last became mightily interested in some of my
soldiering adventures, and it was six o'clock ere we again thought that
some final measure must be adopted for restoring Baby to her friends, or at
least, guarding against the consequences her simple and guileless nature
might have involved her in.

Mik