thrall, but she sighed not to
be free! For, alas! a grievous malady had seized her. The light of her
eyes--a brisk and winning gallant, in the shape of a male cousin--had
departed. He went out to the wars, as was reported, and Ellen refused
to be comforted. He knew not, peradventure, of her liking towards him.
He was of a different creed, moreover--a Catholic--and she had, in the
sovereignty of her caprice, treated him with something of
petulance--he thought scorn. What a misfortune, that two fond hearts
should have wanted an interpreter!

She sat one evening in her bed-chamber, and Bridget her maid, a little
Roman Catholic orphan, who had served her from a child, was busily
engaged in preparing her mistress for the night's repose. Now Bridget
was a zealous believer in saints, miracles, and the like; and Ellen
would often disport herself gently on the subject.

"I wish I could believe in thy legends and thy saints' gear; it would
verily be a comfortable disposition of my thoughts in all extremity to
have a hope of a special interference."

"And why not?" said Bridget, who confessed thrice a-year, and knew the
marvellous histories of a dozen saints by rote.

"Because," said her mistress, "I did not imbibe thy faith with my
mother's milk as thou hast done. 'Tis part of thy very nature, wench;
and thou couldst not but act in conformity thereto."

"There have we the better of our birthright. But, nevertheless, those
who repent and turn to the true faith have the same privileges; yet it
is hard, as well it may be, to bend their stubborn nature to this
belief. How comfortable to have one's sins struck from the calendar,
and to know that we are holy again as a little child, besides ailments
of the body innumerable that are cured whenever we can bring our faith
to its full exercise!"

"Well, Bridget, if I were a good Catholic as now I am an unbeliever
and heretic, dost think that St Somebody, or whoever I might take a
fancy to for the purpose, would be propitiated by a few prayers and
genuflexions, and restore me to health and--and"----

She faltered in her speech; the banter died away on her lips; memory
gave a sudden twinge, and her heart grew dark under the dim cloud that
was passing over.

"I'd answer for it, if you were a good Catholic, that Father O'Leary
would cure you as readily as he did Davy Dean's sow, that went mad,
and bit her master."

"But seeing that I am neither a good Catholic nor even Davy Dean's