the young giddy heads, and their laughter, naughty as they were, sounded sweet in the night air.

Time flew quickly, and the girls suddenly discovered that they must pack up their table-cloth and remove all traces of the feast unless they wished the bright light of morning to discover them. They rose hastily, sighing, and slightly depressed now that their fun was over. The white table-cloth, no longer very white, was packed into the basket, the ginger-beer bottles placed on top of it, and the lid fastened down. Not a crumb of the feast remained; Rover had demolished the bones, and the eight girls had made short work of everything else, with the exception of the cherry-stones, which Phyllis carefully collected and popped into a little hole in the ground.

The party then progressed slowly homewards, and once more entered the dark wood. They were much more silent now; the wood was darker, and the chill which foretells the dawn was making itself felt in the air. Either the sense of cold or a certain effect produced by Annie's ridiculous stories, made many of the little party unduly nervous.

They had only taken a few steps through the wood when Phyllis suddenly uttered a piercing shriek. This shriek was echoed by Nora and by Mary Morris, and all their hearts seemed to leap into their mouths when they saw something move among the trees. Rover uttered a growl, and, but for Annie's detaining hand, would have sprung forward. The high-spirited girl was not to be easily daunted.

"Behold, girls, the goblin of the woods," she exclaimed. "Quiet, Rover; stand still."

The next instant the fears of the little party reached their culmination when a tall, dark figure stood directly in their paths.

"If you don't let us pass at once," said Annie's voice, "I'll set Rover at you."

The dog began to bark loudly, and quivered from head to foot.

The figure moved a little to one side, and a rather deep and slightly dramatic voice said

"I mean you no harm, young ladies; I'm only a gipsymother from the tents yonder. You are welcome to get

back to Lavender House. I have then one course plain before me."

"Come on, girls," said Annie, now considerably frightened, while Phyllis, and Nora, and one or two more began to sob.

"Look here, young ladies," said the gipsy in a whining voice, "I don't mean you no harm, my pretties, and it 's no affair of mine telling the good ladies at Lavender House what I've seen. You cross my hand, dears, each of you, with a bit of silver, and all I'll do is to tell your pretty fortunes, and mum is the word with the gipsy-mother as far as this night's prank is concerned."

"We had better do it, Annie-we had better do it," here sobbed Phyllis. "If this was found out by Mrs. Willis we might be expelled-we might, indeed; and that horrid woman is sure to tell of us-I know she is."

"Quite sure to tell, dear," said the tall gipsy, dropping a curtsey in a manner which looked frightfully sarcastic in the long shadows made by the trees. "Quite sure to tell, and to be expelled is the very least that could happen to such naughty little ladies. Here's a nice little bit of clearing in the wood, and we 'll all come over, and Mother Rachel will tell your fortunes in a twinkling, and no one will be the wiser. Sixpence a-piece, my dears-only sixpence a-piece."

"Oh, come; do, do come," said Nora, and the next moment they were all standing in a circle round Mother Rachel, who pocketed her blackmail eagerly, and repeated some gibberish over each little hand. Over Annie's palm she lingered for a brief moment, and looked with her penetrating eyes into the girl's face.

"You'll have suffering before you, miss; some suspicion, and danger even to life itself. But you'll triumph, my dear, you'll triumph. You 're a plucky one, and you'll do a brave deed. There-good-night, young ladies; you have nothing more to fear from Mother Rachel."

The tall dark figure disappeared into the blackest shadows of the wood, and the girls, now like so many frightened hares, flew home. They deposited their basket where Betty would find it, under the shadow of the great laurel in the back avenue. They all bade Rover an affec

tionate "good-night." Annie softly unlocked the side-door, and one by one, with their shoes in their hands, they regained their bedrooms. They were all very tired, and very cold, and a dull fear and sense of insecurity rested over each little heart. Suppose Mother Rachel proved unfaithful, notwithstanding the sixpences?

E. CE. SOMERVILLE AND VIOLET MARTIN ("MARTIN ROSS").

MARTIN ROSS is the pseudonym of Miss Violet Martin and Miss Somerville, who are both great-granddaughters of Chief Justice Charles Kendal Bushe. Miss Martin is daughter of the late James Martin of Ross, County Galway, while Miss Somerville is daughter of the late Colonel Somerville of Drishane, County Cork. Both writers know their Cork and their Galway thoroughly, and are on the happiest terms with the gentry and peasantry of their immediate surroundings.

They know their Dublin as thoroughly, as their remarkable novel, 'The Real Charlotte,' goes to prove. These ladies have produced some very successful books: An Irish Cousin,''Naboth's Vineyard,' Through Connemara in a Governess Cart,' In the Vine Country, and last, but not least, Some Experiences of an Irish Resident Magistrate,' a delightful book which has placed its authors among the first of the humorists. 'The Real Charlotte' excels as a picture of the bourgeoisie and the little folk of the country. It is bitten in with acid, and if it falls short of mere pleasantness, there is in it a strength that tempts one to name the authors of The Real Charlotte' with some very great writers.

LISHEEN RACES, SECOND-HAND.

From 'Some Experiences of an Irish Resident Magistrate.'

I

It may or may not be agreeable to have attained the age of thirty-eight, but, judging from old photographs, the privilege of being nineteen has also its drawbacks. tured over page after page of an ancient book in which were enshrined portraits of the friends of my youth, singly, in David and Jonathan couples, and in groups in which I, as it seemed to my mature and possibly jaundiced perception, always contrived to look the most immeasurable young bounder of the lot. Our faces were fat, and yet I cannot remember ever having been considered fat in my life; we indulged in low-necked shirts, in "Jemima" ties with diagonal stripes; we wore coats that seemed three sizes too small, and trousers that were three sizes too big; we also wore small whiskers.

I stopped at last at one of the David and Jonathan memorial portraits. Yes, here was the object of my researches; this stout and earnestly romantic youth was Leigh Kelway, and that fatuous and chubby young person

Leigh Kelway

seated on the arm of his chair was myself. was a young man ardently believed in by a large circle of admirers, headed by himself and seconded by me, and for some time after I had left Magdalen for Sandhurst, I maintained a correspondence with him on large and abstract subjects. This phase of our friendship did not survive; I went soldiering to India, and Leigh Kelway took honors and moved suitably on into politics, as is the duty of an earnest young Radical with useful family connections and an independent income. Since then I had at intervals seen in the papers the name of the Honorable Basil Leigh Kelway mentioned as a speaker at elections, as a writer of thoughtful articles in the reviews, but we had never met, and nothing could have been less expected by me than the letter, written from Mrs. Raverty's Hotel, Skebawn, in which he told me he was making a tour in Ireland with Lord Waterbury, to whom he was private secretary. Lord Waterbury was at present having a few days' fishing near Killarney, and he himself, not being a fisherman, was collecting statistics for his chief on various points connected with the Liquor Question in Ireland. He had heard that I was in the neighborhood, and was kind enough to add that it would give him much pleasure to meet me again.

With a stir of the old enthusiasm I wrote begging him to be my guest for as long as it suited him, and the following afternoon he arrived at Shreelane. The stout young friend of my youth had changed considerably. His important nose and slightly prominent teeth remained, but his wavy hair had withdrawn intellectually from his temples; his eyes had acquired a statesmanlike absence of expression, and his neck had grown long and birdlike. It was his first visit to Ireland, as he lost no time in telling me, and he and his chief had already collected much valuable information on the subject to which they had dedicated the Easter recess. He further informed me that he thought of popularizing the subject in a novel, and therefore intended to, as he put it, "master the brogue" before his return.

During the next few days I did my best for Leigh Kelway. I turned him loose on Father Scanlan; I showed him Mohona, our champion village, that boasts fifteen publichouses out of twenty buildings of sorts and a railway station; I took him to hear the prosecution of a publican