were not so keen to see them, then. You ran before them, not after them." Here, on the "Mountain," was fought the Battle of the Three Rocks, in '98. No man ever knew the number of the yeomen that fell in the fight; but there is the green field, nurtured with the bones of the English soldiery. It is the vast grave of the oppressors whom the oppressed rose up against, and slew a very Field of Blood, the burying-place for strangers.

I turned my back upon it, and let the sea-voice win me to happier remembrance. How pleasant was the land in its ripeness of harvest! The sun was over Cameross, and brightening the "lofty Hill of Bree." Far-off, amid the burning southern blue, there was a sweep of fretted cloud dappling the sky as with flakes of snow. "Sweet is the voice in the Land of Gold," I said. The sand-dunes were glinting like yellow ore. The fields were golden. The foam of the waves was flecked with gold. And we came down the "Mountain," silent, like the silent land that listened to the lulling, alluring murmur of the sea.

ALICE FURLONG.

THE BAPTIST

SOFT garments are not thine to wear,
Nor robes of regal Tyrian dye;
Poor fragments of rough camels' hair
Clothe thy bronzed shoulders scantily.

Up from the desert comest thou,
Thy silent life is o'er for aye.
High is thine office, thou wilt now
Proclaim the Christ, prepare His way.
O great, strong man! I see thee stand
Amidst the crowd by Jordan's stream;
I mark the right uplifted hand

Amid the orient sunlight gleam.

And oh the rapt look on thy face
When cometh o'er the verdant sod
A Man with more than mortal grace-
Behold, 'tis He, the Lamb of God!

This is the Bridegroom, thou His friend.
While myriad ages come and go,
This friendship shall not have an end,
No end this wedding-feast shall know.
For thee the desert's heat no more,

The hunger pang, the parching thirst;
No more the wild beasts' fearsome roar
At midnight on thine ear shall burst.

More than a prophet! Saint austere !
What songs of triumph greet thine ears!
Short was thy life of suffering here,
But who shall count th' eternal years?

MARY CORBETT.

A LOWLY SHRINE

A SIMPLE Song I'll sing you of a humble wayside shrine-
A theme already treated by a worthier pen than mine.
Our Lady of the Tolka, who guards with tender care
A little group of cottages, all lowly, poor, and bare.

They stand beside the river, whose treacherous waters deep
In floodtime would rise swiftly up and o'er the houses sweep;
But since they brought Our Lady there, and built for her a shrine,
The angry floods are driven away as by command Divine.

Dearly they love Our Lady, these grateful cottiers poor,
The Queen of Heaven whose gentle hands keep sorrow from thei

door.

Her shrine through all the year is decked with blossoms dewy. sweet,

Flowers of the forest and the field, poor simple offerings meet.

And revellers returning from midnight ball or rout,

Will stand before the statue where the little lamp shines out,
To think awhile of Heaven, not earth; and breathe a prayer of

thanks

To her who guards the lowly poor upon the river-banks.

NORA TYNAN O'MAHONY.

T

FROM A COTTAGE TO A FLAT

O give notice to one's landlord and to sign the lease of a flat, are comparatively easy matters. Some neighbours of mine in the country did these things lightly—not to say rashly-but, when I went to see them one day at tea-time, I found them together, aghast at the prospect of moving.

There were two of them in that cottage; a lady somewhat old and infirm, and her son. A glance at them both would satisfy one that they were equally incapable of undertaking the responsibility; so I offered my services, stipulating only that another girl, a grand-daughter, should come to the cottage and share the labour with me.

In one sense they are rather easily moved people. Certainly the lady is more warm-hearted and appreciative than it is possible to say; but in the other sense of the word the man proved to be the more easily moved of the two. He just hung up one hat on a stand in the hall, and reached down another, -as he might do, any morning-and at the last moment he waved his hand vaguely round the walls and called to the Two of Us: "Some of these things are coming, I suppose?" Then he was gone. He is the Breadwinner, and of course we recognized that, as such, he must not be detained, though we shared a suspicion that his way that morning was as likely to lead him to the hunting field as to the Stock Exchange.

Well, he had deserted, and the Two of Us, filled with the zeal of the early morning, rolled up our sleeves and looked round at the work to be done. It was eight o'clock, and ten was the hour named for the van; but the minutes flew, and the excitement increased till it came very near to a panic at the end. Women rushed from room to room, searching high and low for things at the eleventh hour, and catching them up as they might do if the sea had been closing over them.

Outside in the yard, a persistent flapping of rugs began, and indoors before long the scene was like the morrow of a battle; armies of pictures were laid low, and serried ranks of china and glasses stood upon the ground. There seemed much to be done that could be left to no one else. Birds' eggs

treasures from the Breadwinner's youth-to be packed; inkpots to be emptied and stuffed with straw; keys of clocks to be hidden; the Two of Us darted about like things inspired, our arms full of string and cotton wool. It was a day when ropes of icicles hung from the outside pipes, but we were not for that afraid to fling open all the doors before there was the least chance of the van appearing to take its load. Through one of the them we could see the Lady, whose part was the really difficult one to play, waiting and watching while we ran about. We had insisted that she should leave the Cottage before the real business of the day began, and at half-past nine she set out, rather sadly. From that moment We Two were alone, and the responsibility began to look enormous. The Other Girl grew a little nervous, I thought, and consulted me over often; so I assumed a bold air-apparently with success-for, when the men appeared I was called "My Lady," and the other Girl was only "Miss." The glass became my glass, the linen, mine; the plate, and even at the end, "Your wine, my lady."

Soon after ten, the van loomed up between the laurels, and the Other Girl ran down to receive the Chief of the Staff. He made himself known to us, and soon the whole force invaded the house-Scrooge, Harry, John, and the rest; and each went straight to his own work. The Two of Us are inexperienced, and we made a mistake at the outset. We spoke to Harry about the piano, and the entire staff smiled. Harry the delicatehanded, the tender-fingered !-His place all day would be among the china and the breakables. A piano, a sideboard or a bedstead-that was work for John the burly.

The move was to be made in two vans. In the first we sent, I am afraid it is true, all the things that might so well have waited the curtains going where no poles or rings awaited them, and the hundred and one nick-nacks where no tables would receive them. Once more we must plead our youth and inexperience.

Suddenly we observed Scrooge, sadly puzzled by the little blue labels that showed themselves everywhere, T marked on them in black ink. What the could they mean? Inspiration came to him suddenly, and Scrooge caught up a table, muttering to himself, " Of course, T for take." This was what we had feared, and from opposite ends of the house, the Two

of Us rushed at him to explain what was meant. T was for "Tadorne," just as L was for "London." It was the Breadwinner's scheme and all day Sunday-we put it pathetically to Scrooge-he had roamed round the house, sticking little blue labels on the things he had made up his mind to leave behind him. Scrooge heard us, smiling indulgently, but there was just a note or sarcasm in his voice as he answered: "I see, I see. A capital plan."

The Two of Us are very sensitive, and the power of these people to hurt us was enormous. They did not hesitate to count aloud the crockery broken before they came, the chipped glasses, and the cracked picture-frames. The first word they spoke was to tell us: "Your gatepost was badly knocked about, before our van turned in." And the last from Harry was this: "Your muffin dish was in pieces before I laid my hands on it.”

The Other Girl really suffered at one moment; Scrooge made her feel she had done such a very silly thing. "You didn't know the mercury would run out of the b'rometer when it was layin' down. Fancy that, Miss."

The only thing to do with Scrooge was to make him feel a little bit of a fool, too. So we took to this in self-defence. Fancy forgetting to bring a key for the spring mattresses! And then packing up the carriage rug that we took out of the brougham to make room for the Lady's hot-water bottles! We laughed at him cheerily, till we were sure that Scrooge didn't like it.

There were two days of this sort of thing, and on the second day, there was quite a ceremony over the packing of the wine. Would I count it? I counted, and then Scrooge did so. He made it half a dozen bottles less than I did, so he started again. I wondered why he was not content to move what was there; he could not do more. But perhaps he had hoped that the difference would be in his favour. In the end we agreed, and then Scrooge lifted two bottles and asked contemptuously what these might be. I thought they looked like bottles, and I said so; but to Scrooge there was a difference.

"Bottles ? No. These are part bottles." I had to admit the corks had been replaced, and the man seemed to think he had scored.

Of the trials awaiting us at the flat we will not speak. We are really fond of the Breadwinner, and do not want to be hard