, and with this trust he
entered the house.

Mary received them with her wonted hospitality--Lanty was an expected
guest--and showed how gratified she felt to have young O'Donoghue
beneath her roof.

"I was afeard you were forgetting me entirely, Mr. Mark," said she--"you
passed the door twice, and never as much as said, God save you, Mary."

"I did not forget you, for all that, Mary," said he, feelingly. "I have
too few friends in the world to spare any of them; but I've had many
things on my mind lately."

"Well, and to be sure you had, and why wouldn't you? 'Tis no shame of
you to be sad and down-hearted--an O'Donoghue of the ould stock--the
best blood in Kerry, wandering about by himself, instead of being
followed by a troop of servants, with a goold coat-of-arms worked
on their coats, like your grandfather's men--the heavens be his bed.
Thirty-eight mounted men, armed, ay and well armed, were in the saddle
after him, the day the English general came down here to see the troops
that was quartered at Bantry."

"No wonder we should go afoot now," said Mark, bitterly.

"Well, well--it's the will of God," ejaculated Mary, piously, "and who
knows what's in store for you yet?"

"That's the very thing I do be telling him," said Lanty, who only waited
for the right moment to chime in with the conversation. "There's fine
times coming."

Mary stared at the speaker with the eager look of one who wished to
derive a meaning deeper than the mere words seemed to convey, and then,
checking her curiosity at a gesture from Lanty, she set about arranging
the supper, which only awaited his arrival.

Mark ate but little of the fare before him, though Mary's cookery
was not without its temptations; but of the wine--and it was strong
Burgundy--he drank freely. Goblet after goblet he drained with that
craving desire to allay a thirst, which is rather the symptom of a
mind fevered by passion than by malady. Still, as he drank, no sign of
intoxication appeared; on the contrary, his words evinced a tone of but
deeper resolution, and a more settled purpose than at first, when he
told how he had promised never to leave his father, although all his
hopes pointed to the glorious career a foreign service would open before
him.

"It was a good vow you made, and may the saints enable you to keep it,"
said Mary.

"And for the matter of glory, maybe there's some to be got nearer home,
and without travelling to look for it," interposed L