_terrima causa belli_, thou dost play the devil with
the hearts of men! Who is there who doth not wish to look upon thee,
from the saint to the sinner?--None. For thee worlds have been lost;
nations swept off the earth; thrones overturned; and cities laid in
ashes! Adam, David, Marc Antony, Abelard, and Denis O'Shaughnessy,
exhibit histories of thy power never to be forgotten, but the greatest
of these is Denis O'Shaughnessy.

Susan was about the middle size; her tresses, like those of the
daughters of her country, were a fair brown, and abundant. Her features
were not such, we admit, as mark regular and scientific perfection,
and perhaps much of their power was owing to their not being altogether
symmetrical. Her great charm consisted in a spirit of youthful
innocence, so guileless that the very light of purity and truth seemed
to break in radiance from her countenance. Her form was round, light,
and flexible. When she smiled her face seemed to lose the character of
its mortality--so seraphic and full of an indescribable spell were its
lineaments; that is, the spell was felt by its thrilling influence
upon the beholder, rather than by any extraordinary perception of her
external beauty. The general expression of her countenance, however, was
that of melancholy. No person could look upon her! white forehead and
dark flashing eyes, without perceiving that she was full of tenderness
and enthusiasm; but let the light of cheerfulness fall upon her face,
and you wished never to see it beam with any other spirit. In her met
those extremes of character peculiar to her country. Her laughing lips
expanded with the playful delicacy of mirth, or breathed forth, with
untaught melody and deep pathos, her national songs of sorrow.

A little before she made her appearance, the moon had risen and softened
with her dewy light the calm secluded scene around them. Denis, too, had
an opportunity of seeing the lovely girl more distinctly. Her dress was
simple but becoming. Her hair, except the side ringlets that fell to
heighten the beauty of her neck, was bound up with a comb which Denis
himself had presented to her. She wore a white dimity bedgown, that sat
close to her well-formed person, descended below her knee, and opened
before; the sleeves of it did not reach the elbow, but displayed an arm
that could not be surpassed for whiteness and beauty. The bedgown was
frilled about the shoulder, which it covered, leaving the neck only, and