only Uncle Terence would come home, how different things would be!"

"Don't dream of the impossible, Betty. And now put away your book for to-day. You'll do no good at it, I see. The children are picking fruit for jam. So, cheer up, and come out into the garden, and help them, as fast as you can.” And she hurried away.

"In spite of their kindness—and they are kind—I am one too many. Oh! 'tis sad to have no father-no mother, no home of one's own." And Betty wept bitterly, as she put her history-book upon the shelf, her violin in its case.

This feeling of loneliness, and that she had no right to be at Dowcra, had hung like a dark cloud over this child all her life. Her aunt was kind and affectionate, and never by word or act showed that she looked upon her little niece as a trouble, or an expense. Her cousins, though often teasing and annoying, were on the whole friendly and good-natured. Her Uncle Michael Tiernan treated her with even more consideration than he did his own strong, boisterous, healthy girls. Excepting his eldest-born, pretty Kathleen, she was evidently his favourite amongst that houseful of children, and no word had ever dropped from his lips that could possibly have been twisted into a murmur or a complaint at having to support her. He loved the child, and always took her part when those around him laughed at her dreamy ways, and stupidity over her books. "She has a genius for music and a pretty face," he would say, That's quite enough for any girl."

66

so leave her alone.

Genius, Mike?" his wife would reply. "It's you that are dreaming now. I've no objection to Betty's playing a tune on that old fiddle, occasionally. It makes the house lively, and amuses her. But genius! Pray, don't tell her that, or you'll turn her little head."

"No fear. But mind you, Mag, dreamy and all as she is -I feel sure, Betty will be a comfort and a help to us yet."

“Oh, I dare say. And this moment, Mike, I love the wee thing warmly. It would break my heart if Terence landed home a rich man to carry her off, and make her his

heiress."

"Pigs might fly, the skies might fall," laughed her husband. "Until they do, Betty will remain with us. Her Uncle Terence

will never claim her. And, indeed, with you, I sincerely hope he won't."

But if Mr. and Mrs. Tiernan were unselfishly fond of the child, and glad to have her to love and take care of, there were plenty of people all round, who openly pitied them for having a penniless, useless girl to support and provide for, in addition to their own big family, and go where she would, Elizabeth was sure to hear herself and her prospects pretty freely discussed. From her birth, the child had been but a sad specimen of humanity-small, backward, and ailing, and as years went on, though she gradually improved, her progress was slow, she did not grow, or develop either in body or mind with the same rapidity as her sturdy, robust young cousins did. She was pretty, fairylike, graceful, but exceedingly delicate, and so shy and reserved, that few people could even guess at what her thoughts and feelings might be, upon any subject.

"She'll never grow to be a woman," one gossip whispered to another, standing near Elizabeth one afternoon, at a cricket match. "And so much the better. For she's good for nothing, as far as I can see, and the Tiernans are getting deeper and deeper into the mire."

"Dear, dear! I'm sorry to hear that," her friend replied. But surely the girl has something of her own?"

"Not a halfpenny. For some years the different members of the family, old Mr. O'Neill, William, Owen, Molly, and Nesta even, used to pay Michael Tiernan a few pounds a year each towards her support. But that's over and done with long ago. They're all dead and gone. And now, when he'll want all he can get for his own, Michael Tiernan finds himself saddled with a useless, delicate girl to support and provide for."

“But the uncle at Rathkeeran ? Surely he does something to help?"

"Him? Good heavens!"-throwing up her hands—“ It's help he'll be wanting himself, before long. Soon there won't be an O'Neill "

"Hush. The child's listening.'

"Oh! She doesn't understand. Some say she's not all there."

Of these whispered conversations, even as a tiny child, Elizabeth understood more than was good for her; and as she grew VOL. XXXIV.-No. 399.

2 H

up, they made her watchful and suspicious. A hasty word, a fancied slight, or a cross look, caused her the deepest anguish. She felt certain she was stupid, for, since everyone said so, it must be true, and hearing it whispered, on all sides, that she was a trouble and an expense to her uncle and aunt, she became morbidly sensitive, and more than ever shy and reserved. CLARA MULHOLLAND.

(To be continued.)

TO PRINCESS ROSA DE H., ON HER
NAME-DAY

"A ROSE" the Latin rosa means.
As I need hardly mention,
And 'twas the word that in my teens
Taught me my first declension;
Now, Princess, 'tis no common noun.
And he would tell a whopper,

Who'd say, to set your sweetness down,
'Tis not the name most proper.

In ae its genitive doth bloom,
With "of a rose " for meaning,
As are these rose-buds over whom
Your mother-love is leaning:

God bless the blossoms of the Rose

"

Amen," says Princess Sarah—

Which 'mid these Styrian mountains blows,
And on the Riviera.

Then "to a rose" the dative is
Unchanged in termination,
Which brings to you our messages
Of love and admiration;
For of the wealth as yet untold,
Which of the heart is native
And dearer is than gifts of gold,

This date has made us dative.

TO PRINCEss rosa de h,, on her name-DAY 499

Next comes the case accusative,
That has in am its ending;

But I do know not as I live

What in you needs defending;
And if I could I would not tell,
No matter how suggestive

This case is, for that were not well
Upon a day so festive.

The vocative is rosa, too;
Its use is to address you,

As when one says, as now I do,
"O Rosa "-may God bless you!
May He transplant to Paradise
And set you near your patron-
I mean, of course, when you're a nice
And venerable matron.

The ablative, last but not least
Of all these Latin cases,

Prints our good wishes for your feast

Upon our happy faces:

"From "Rosa may these keep away—
And I live long to see it—

All sorrow; thus in hope we pray,
And fondly add, "so be it."

I still remember, as you see,
How I began my Latin,

Though rosa meant much less to me

When life was in its matin.

Thank goodness! that your mother chose

From out the land of Lima

Your name, dear Princess, else-who knows?—

It might have been-Jemima.

JOHN FITZPATRICK, O.M.I.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE LITERATURE OF ANCIENT IRELAND UPON THE MABINOGION'

IN

N the days of Eugene O'Curry, a great English littérateur, Matthew Arnold, pleaded for a Celtic Chair at the University of Oxford. He based his claim upon the contention that Celtic influence had brought into the poetry of England three delightful qualities: the feeling for style, the charm of a wistful melancholy, and the subtle power of expressing in words the magic of Nature. He proved his point by placing side by side quotations from Gaelic, Welsh, German, and English poets. For style we have two epitaphs contrasted: one written upon a tombstone in an English graveyard, the other commemorating Aengus the Culdee, an Irish monk of the eighth century. The first runs :

"Affliction sore long time I bore,

Physicians were in vain,

Till God did please Death should me seize
And ease me from my pain.

And here is the literal translation of the Gaelic :

Engus in the assembly of Heaven,
Here are his tomb and his bed;
It is from hence he went to death,
On the Friday, to holy Heaven.

It was in Cluain Eidnech he was reared,
It was in Cluain Eidnech he was buried ;
In Cluain Eidnech, of many crosses,
He first read his psalms.

For the second quality, comparison is made between the gentle sorrow of the German "Werther," whom the critic describes as an "amiable, cultivated, and melancholy young man," and the Titanic, passionate wistfulness of Llywarch Hen, the Welshman, in his old age, addressing his crutch. The whole passage from the Cymric is too long to be quoted here, but a few verses will serve to show the force and beauty of the piece :