an agle on the back o' it! 'Tis
for Biddy Joyce, and maybe ye'll take it, Dermot, seeing your legs is
younger than mine?"

Dermot was off already, climbing the mountain slopes in hot haste.

Biddy Joyce stood watching him from the door where Eily and he had
parted months before.

"The poor fellow! it's like me own son he has been all this time, so
kind when the sickness took hould o' Mike and me! It's meself that
wishes he could forget me daughter, for it's poor comfort she will ever
be to him. Faith, thin, Dermot," she exclaimed, as he came towards her,
"phwat is it at all at all that ye come hurrying like this when the sun
is warm enough to kill a body? Come inside, lad, and taste a sup o' me
nice, sweet butther-milk; shure the churn's just done, though the
butther's too soft entoirely"--she shook her head sadly.

"A letther!" cried Dermot, drawing out the treasured epistle from
between the folds of his shirt, where he had hastily thrust it, that his
hands might not soil the creamy paper.

"Thanks be to God!" exclaimed the woman, raising her eyes and hands for
one moment to heaven. "'Tis long sence she wrote to me, the poor
darlint, and it's many a time I lie awake and think o' the child all
alone wid sthrangers not of her own blood. Whisht, boy, but you are
worse nor meself I make no doubts"--as Dermot snatched the letter from
her and hastily tore open the envelope. His face was pale with
excitement and dread, for he feared, with a lover's jealous fear, that
this was an announcement of Eily's marriage with some of the grand folks
she had talked about.

"Rade it, Dermot; 'tis long sence I was at school, and the writin's not
aisy."

Dermot obeyed, and this is the letter he spelt out slowly, with no
little difficulty and several interruptions--

"Miss Vandaleur is sorry to tell Mrs. Joyce that
her daughter Eily has been suffering from a severe
illness; she has been in hospital for three weeks
with brain fever, and until a few days ago was
unable to give her mother's address. She is now
much better, and the doctors hope to allow her to
leave soon; she is being taken every care of by
friends, but if some one could be spared to come
such a long distance to see her, it would be the
best thing for the poor girl, as she is always
wishing for her home, and seems tired of living in
London."

Bidd