as now completely removed. Una's mother had nearly forgotten
both the crime and its consequences; but upon the spirit of her daughter
there appeared to rest a silent and settled sorrow not likely to be
diminished or removed. Her cheerfulness had abandoned her, and many an
hour did she contrive to spend with Biddy Nulty, eager in the mournful
satisfaction of talking over all that affection prompted of her banished
lover.

We must now beg our readers to accompany us to a scene of a different
description from any we have yet drawn. The night of a November day had
set in, or rather had advanced so far as nine o'clock, and towards the
angle of a small three-cornered field, called by a peculiar coincidence
of name, Oona's Handkerchief, in consequence of an old legend connected
with it, might be seen moving a number of straggling figures, sometimes
in groups of fours and fives; sometimes in twos or threes as the case
might be, and not unfrequently did a single straggler advance, and,
after a few private words, either join the others or proceed alone to a
house situated in the angular corner of the field to which we allude. As
the district was a remote one, and the night rather dark, several shots
might be heard as they proceeded, and several flashes in the pan seen
from the rusty arms of those who were probably anxious to pull a trigger
for the first time. The country, at the period we write of, be it
observed, was in a comparative state of tranquility, and no such thing
as a police corps had been heard of or known in the neighborhood.

At the lower end of a long, level kind of moor called the Black Park,
two figures approached a* kind of gate or pass that opened into it.
One of them stood until the other advanced, and, in a significant tone,
asked who comes there?

"A friend to the guard," was the reply.

"Good morrow," said the other.

"Good morrow mornin' to you."

"What age are you in?"

"In the end of the Fifth."

"All right; come on, boy; the true blood's in you, whoever you are."

"An' is it possible you don't know me, Dandy?"

"Faix, it is; I forgot my spectacles tonight. Who the dickins are you at
all?"

"I suppose you purtind to forget Ned M'Cormick?"

"Is it Nogher's son?"

"The divil a other; an', Dandy Duffy, how are you, man alive?"

"Why, you see, Ned, I've been so long out of the counthry, an' I'm now
so short a time back, that, upon my sowl, I forget a great many of my
ould acquaintances, esp