l the previous obstacles,
they at last raised three feeble shouts on Midkena's Hill, they
immediately gave up the ghost.

The story told yesterday by Sheela the Scribe was the Magic Thread-Clue,
or the Pursuit of the Gilla Dacker, Benella and the Button Boy being the
chief characters; Finola's was the Voyage of the Children of Corr the
Swift-Footed (the Ard-ri's pseudonym for American travellers); while
mine, to be told to-morrow, is called the Quest of the Fair Strangers,
or the Fairy Quicken Tree of Devorgilla.

Chapter XXX. The Quest of the Fair Strangers,
or The Fairy Quicken-Tree of Devorgilla. [*]

'Before the King
The bards will sing.
And there recall the stories all
That give renown to Ireland.'
Eighteenth Century Song.
Englished by George Sigerson.

* It seems probable that this tale records a real incident
which took place in Aunt David's garden. Penelope has
apparently listened with such attention to the old Celtic
romances as told by the Ard-ri and Dermot O'Dyna that she
has, consciously or unconsciously, reproduced something of
their atmosphere and phraseology. The delightful surprise at
the end must have been contrived by Salemina, when she, in
her character of Sheela the Scribe, gazed into the Horn of
Foreknowledge and learned the events that were to happen
that day.--K.D.W.

PEARLA'S STORY.

Three maidens once dwelt in a castle in that part of the Isle of Weeping
known as the cantred of Devorgilla, Devorgilla of the Green Hill Slopes;
and they were baptized according to druidical rites as Sheela the
Scribe, Finola the Festive, and Pearla the Melodious, though by the
dwellers in that land they were called the Fair Strangers, or the
Children of Corr the Swift-Footed.

This cantred of Devorgilla they acquired by paying rent and tribute to
the Wise Woman of Wales, who granted them to fish in its crystal streams
and to hunt over the green-sided hills, to roam through the woods of
yew-trees and to pluck the flowers of every hue that were laughing all
over the plains.

Thus were they circumstanced: Their palace of abode was never without
three shouts in it,--the shout of the maidens brewing tea, the shout of
the guests drinking it, and the shout of the assembled multitude playing
at their games. The same house was never without three measures,--a