Honeywood drew a long breath, and felt a little more comfortable. "Have you any idea of where he is gone to-day?" he asked. "I fancy he is making inquiries about the Signora Francesca." "You know of all that?" said Honeywood, in surprise.

"Do you think I could live in the atmosphere of such a romance as his," said Ida, "without being aware of it? That proves to me how thoroughly unsympathetic I must have been in the past. Believe me, I am now alive to the sorrows and joys of my friends. I hope with all my heart that the long-lost Fan may be found."

Honeywood felt as if a flood of light had suddenly fallen around them. Basking in it a few moments he sat silent; rose and took a few turns up and down the pavement, and then came back and resumed

his seat.

"Ida," he said, firmly, "I cannot any longer bear the suspense that is devouring me. Tell me honestly at once if any of that love so warmly and newly awakened in your heart can be for me." She turned her face radiantly towards him. "All for ton; if you care to have it!"

you,

Thistle

"Care!" He seized her hand and held it close. "My Ida, my wife! have I won you at last ?"

"Ah, Thistleton, I have felt so afraid that I had lost you by my coldness. If you had not been so true, so constant, how terribly I should be punished now."

"And I have been so jealous of-Kevin."

"There was no need. On the contrary, we both owe our happiness to him. Looking back, I can hardly see how he gradually drew my mind away from the images that had always filled it with terror, and led me, step by step, into the beautiful region where his own thoughts always dwell. It seems to me that I have been born over again, and have existed years since I left the Rhine; although I feel that I am only as yet on the very threshold of a blessed and happy life which I have yet to live."

"Let us begin it together," said Honeywood, holding her hands fast in his own.

"It includes more than mere human bliss, dear Thistleton," said Ida, gazing wistfully in his face. "I do not quite comprehend it yet help me, you, to enter upon it safely. Do you understand what I mean?' "I think I can guess.'

"The life which can alone make you and me happy is associated in my thoughts with all the stories of the beautiful lives I have been studying in painting and in marble, in sacred scroll and legend since I first became acquainted with the history of Christ and his saints. Without religion you and I cannot be happy."

"You give words to the thoughts that have been growing in my own heart," said Honeywood, simply.

"Kevin carries about with him a sacred fire-Faith, he calls it; and it lights him, and warms him, wherever he goes. Let us beg a little of this fire- ""

“And burn it on our hearth for evermore," said Honeywood.

"And let us never go with the world, dear Thistleton, but only along the narrow way, and through the narrow gate. I am sure that though the road is steep, and worn with pilgrims' feet, yet it is bordered with flowers for those who are thankful, and keep singing as they go."

Honeywood looked in amazement at her glowing face, her beaming eyes. Truly in winning her he had found more than he had ever in the past dared to hope for.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CONCLUSION.

"So this is you, sir!" said Lord Wilderspin, glaring at Kevin. "You are the Kevin who has been keeping us all in fear, holding a sword over our heads for the last seven years, obliging us to resort to dark plots and heartless advertisements lest our little prima donna should be snatched out of our fingers. And here you come, confound you, just in time to destroy all our prospects!"

"I am delighted to hear I gave you so much trouble," said Kevin, smiling. "It would hardly have been fair if the pain had been all on my side."

"Impertinent rascal. You are as saucy as the minx herself. Hallo, Fan, this fellow will beat you!"

"My lord," said Fan, gravely, "I have promised Herr Harfenspieler and Mamzelle-and Kevin, and I have resolved that I must not disappoint you. I will keep the engagement that you made for me."

"You shall do no such thing, you monkey. Those two old people will have to be put in prison! I tell you you are as free as air, and shall do only what you please. As for me, I am not the least disappointed. I have known for a long time that you were only a wild bird fit for a hedge, that you would never do to sing in a cage. Now, I have already bought a hedge for you in your own country, and you can fly off and sing in it as soon as you like!"

"I don't know what you mean, sir," said Fan, colouring.

"I mean that I have looked on you as my own child, that is all. Every bird needs a bit of green sod to sing on, and I have bought you a little territory of your own, in the neighbourhood of your beloved Killeevy. Mind you have a room always ready for me, for I mean to

"Lord Wilderspin," said Kevin, "we cannot accept so much. You have already been only too generous to Fanchea. We can never forget"

"Hold your tongue, sir, and go on writing your poetry, which by the way is extraordinarily good. I tell you this girl has been my daughter for seven years, and you not only come and dare to take her from me, but you presume to dictate to me as to what I am to do for her. If you do not like her with the fortune I choose to give her, you can go and seek a wife somewhere else."

So that night, when "Lohengrin" was performed at Milan, saw Fanchea's first and last appearance upon a public stage. The two wild birds, after their long flight round the world, winged their way home to Killeevy at last, and took possession of the little kingdom Lord Wilderspin's thoughtful generosity had bestowed upon them. Kevin works hard with his pen, and his name is every day becoming more and more honoured by the nobler and purer-minded section of the reading public. Fanchea, in his home, singing over her womanly tasks by his side, is the inspiration of his genius, even as she was in the old childish days when she sang to him on the island and he saw pictures in her songs.

Connor Mor did not long survive his delight at seeing his son return, and at finding him a "clerk and a book-learned man" after all; but the good old mother lives with the young people in their pretty house, and tells her beads, and spins and knits as she used to do in her humbler home. Her joy in the success of her children is unutterable, and she often bids them pray that after all the toils of her life "pride may not keep her out of heaven at the last."

Shawn Rua was at first very shy of the handsome young lady and gentleman who claimed his old acquaintance, but he is now a frequent visitor at their fireside, and Kevin takes greater pleasure than ever in drawing forth the poetic and legendary treasures that are stored up in the memory of his childhood's friend.

Lord Wilderspin keeps his promise of paying frequent visits to Killeevy, and is fond of appearing there suddenly, scolding every one within reach vehemently for an hour or two, enjoying himself thoroughly, and in the end going away perfectly happy. His present craze is enthusiasm for Kevin's poetry, though all his life he had prided himself on being a hater of poets.

Herr Harfenspieler still walks his chosen way, with a heart modestly and ardently worshipful of music, cheering himself on with meek and heroic maxims. He has so far forgiven Fanchea as sometimes to come and see her in her home; on which occasions delightful concerts may be heard by the birds that flit about Killeevy mountain. He loves to wander away alone among the great rocks, and sitting on

some airy perch, with his violin upon his shoulder, to pour out delicious wailings that mingle fitly with the piping of the winds and the booming of the ocean-waves at his feet.

Mamzelle has been the slowest to forgive, and is still beating about the world, still subject to fits of the old madness, when she dreams that she may yet paint wonderful pictures which shall be as the works of another Raphael or Fra Angelico. But Fan hopes that when she grows old and weary she will come to her for shelter, and die in her

arms.

We will now take leave of our hero and heroine on a summer evening after sunset as they sit in their own little territory-a garden of roses extending down to the cliffs, with the crimsoned ocean at their feet and all the hundred isles they know so well burning on it like so many jewels, set with amethyst and amber and gold.

Kevin has just finished reading his new poem to Fanchea. Her hand is in his; her eyes are full of tears. She is not thinking of the applause of the world which may follow this work, but of the higher audience that have been present at the reading, the choirs of angels that have witnessed this new utterance of a strong man's soul. them be the judges" is the thought of her heart; and she smiles, feeling conscious of their approval.

"Let

A cloud of sea-birds rises from their favourite island; they circle and wheel, and fly off in a trail towards the glory of the sun. So wing all white souls to a happy eternity.

THE END.

MARGERY'S DREAM.

BY ELEANOR C. DONNELLY.

RETTY, fair-haired Margery, sitteth on the cliff,

PRET

Watching, waiting anxiously for her father's skiff,
He hath gone to old Boulogne, o'er the waters gleaming,
Like a mystic city drawn in a midnight dreaming;
Went he to that far Boulogne on a breezy morning
Three long sunny days agone,

And his daughter watcheth on,
For his safe returning.

Wealth of wavy hair unbound, wreathing brow and cheek, Dimpled arms caressing wound 'round the rugged peak; She doth seem a marble naiad, dreaming o'er the water, Rather than a mortal maid and a fisher's daughter.

Grieving eyes fringed round with gold, grieving lips apart,
Cheeks, like lilies, pale and cold, tell the anxious heart.
Pretty, sad-eyed Margery,
With the earnest brow,

Emblem of our life art thou,

Watching by the sea;

Watching, waiting on the cliff, with suspended breath,
For the coming of the skiff, and our father-Death!

Fresh the breeze blows o'er the maid, as the moon rides high,
But the sleep begot of shade weighs her weary eye;
Clasping still the rugged peak, in her troubled dreaming,
Slender hand upon her cheek, flaxen hair wide-streaming.
O'er her, like a silver pall, pallid moonbeams flow,
Or, like broken arrows, fall in the bay below.

And there come, as well there may, to her soul a-dreaming,
Visions of that little bay and the white sails gleaming;
And she walks the lower sands with a heart at rest,
And her snowy maiden hands crossed upon her breast-
Walks unto the water's edge, in the vision mocking,
And below the shingly ledge sees a white skiff rocking.