So Mr. Bilks had to come along," and that was the end of the wonderful Laurie, the lion of the day. The dapper little man had been so courted that it would have been next to impossible for him to have resisted the temptation he fell into, and his dupes were not slow to discover that he must have been an exceedingly clever fellow to have so deceived them.

The next day and the next there was more Eisteddfod, with fresh honourable chairmen, and more speech-making, more englynion and pennillion, and more chorus. The same audience with the same enthusiasm. The same tent, with the same mottoes. The same nobility on the platform, with Mr. Stainley as a substitute for Mr. Laurie. The professor as discursive and urbane as ever. More flattery being dispensed, and the same capacity exhibited for swallowing it. And then when the bustle and excitement of the great gathering were over, Llanrhyddiog went to sleep again in its own accustomed fashion, in which people seemed to get up only that they might eat, and ate only that they might sleep, work being indulged in simply that the time might not hang heavily on their hands. This monotony, to any but the natives, would have been unbearable for any length of time; for Sunday was the only day that seemed to come once a week, the others were all so very much alike.

On the first of these Sundays that intervened to break the monotony, Mrs. Davies and her household went to the chapel. Mr. Busby and Mr. Stainley accompanied her, and found the chapel to be a queer little place, very small and very plain, with four candlesticks suspended from the ceiling, and two or three hanging on the wall; these latter being made of tin, and polished so as to act as reflectors. There was an ordinary fire-place at the end of the chapel, the pews were of the commonest description, and round the pulpit was the large square enclosure which in the stricter churches of the Wesleyans is set apart for the elders.

The preacher was a shoemaker of the name of Evans, and he had journeyed ten miles that morning, to conduct the service. He commenced by giving out a hymn in Welsh. Contrary to the custom generally adopted in churches and chapels in England, the congregation did not rise in a body at the sounding of the first note of the hymn; indeed, scarcely more than three people had risen from their seats by the time the first line had been chanted by the leader. But slowly, one by one, the people rose, until perhaps three-fourths of their number were standing, and singing lustily. There seemed to be the same wild, absent look about the features of each, comparing well with the wild weird notes of the song that they sung. There seemed to be the same listlessness, too, in their manner; for those of the men who stood, lolled on the back of their pews, with their hands in their pockets, some turning this way, and some that, now singing, now silent. Near to the end of the hymn the voices seemed to flag, and the sound died almost to the volume of but one voice; when from one corner of the chapel lustily swelled the first note of the tune. This voice was soon joined by the whole of the singers, and so the verse

was repeated; dying gradually, the sound was caught up again in another part of the chapel, and the same process was repeated-falling and rising, dying and reviving for some four or five times, when the spirit seemed to move none to re-awaken the sound, and so the hymn ended. This is one of the characteristics of the native Welsh singing, and it has a very strange and moving effect. The tunes are mostly in the minor key, and the wailing notes of the singers seem like the last cries of a dying language.

On the completion of the hymn, the preacher commenced a prayer in a scarcely audible voice, but, by-and-by, it grew louder, and occasionally the people showed their appreciation of the aspirations of the preacher by a repetition of "Amen," "Ay, ay," and "Deolch," which last may be translated "Gloria Deo."

As the service advanced, and when the preaching commenced, these comments increased; and, as is customary in such places, some members of the congregation arose-others walked out of their seats and leaned over the back of another pew. One old man, with red hair, and with a very large magenta-coloured woollen wrapper tied round his neck with a bow, placed himself in all kinds of positions, now and then repeating his comments with much fervour. As the preacher grew warm in his discourse, and chanted his exhortations of many sentences commencing with the same syllables, and ending with a kind of wail-which among the people is called "the hwyl"—some even wept, and many seemed moved. Busby felt a kind of thrill at the extraordinary tone of the preacher and the earnest looks of the people; and even Mr. Stainley "felt a little out of the common." Indeed there was only one thing that marred the touching nature of the service, and that was the immense amount of expectoration that was going forward all over the chapel. Even the minister, while preaching, was not careful to refrain from indulging in a habit that seemed to be so generally prevalent.

The service was concluded by another hymn, and it was long before it was ended, for the preaching had moved the people to praise. The influence of the whole was strangely affecting, as all such services are, even to those not understanding the tongue. And thus it can be well understood why the people cling so tenaciously to their language, for though the cold Saesoneg may do well enough for their business, their emotions can find a voice only in their loved Chymraeg.

With this experience of Llanrhyddiog, Messieurs Busby and Stainley wisely made an end of their visit.

488

Eveleen O'Connor.

Ir was during a little tour that I made in Ireland when following in the wake of her Majesty Queen Victoria, in her first progress through that most famous island, that I one day found myself standing in a rather disconsolate state at the large window of a very dreary inn, in a dull remote country town. Except the thickness of the dust that lay on the table there was no object in the room to engage attention or curiosity, but while I stood wearily looking out of the window I beheld one that instantly excited both. It was the figure of a woman, far removed from the bloom of youth, but still by no means old, who stood just before it in an attitude one might imagine designed for effect, but with an expression of face that art could scarcely assume.

Her arms were crossed over the breast in such a way as to bring each hand to rest on the opposite shoulder; they were not the ruddy hands of a country damsel, but pale, thin, almost bloodless in aspect. A mantle that had once been scarlet hung loosely round a tall wasted figure: the face was quite colourless, and seemed immovable as marble, but the large dark eyes were full of the most singular and melancholy light; they were upturned to the window, and fastened on me with a fixed and sorrowful gaze.

In answer to what I supposed to be a silent supplication, I threw a sixpence into the street; it fell at the woman's feet, but she never noticed it, nor withdrew the mournful eyes from my face; their silently beseeching expression was unaltered; while standing thus she burst into a strain of song of the strangest and wildest description. No words were distinguishable; it was a wild and plaintive melody that seemed to flow from the soul of sorrow.

Before it ceased the man denominated waiter came into the room. "Who is she" I asked.

"A poor creature every one is good to. God help her."

"I threw down a sixpence, but she did not notice it."

"Nor won't. She only takes food."

"Indeed! pray then bring her in, and give her this," nodding my head to the luncheon I could not eat.

She held out a poor checked apron,

He brought her into the room. and received the food in silence; looking at me she made the sign of the cross on her breast, and went away without uttering a word.

"Is she mad?" was my inquiry.

"She is not right in herself," the waiter replied, slightly correcting my expression.

"Has she no friends?"

"Every one is friends to her, poor girl."

"But no relatives, no one to take care of her?"

"Ah! sure God takes care of her, when He took away the creature's reason. She comes from the other side of the mountain, and they say she comes of decent people-great people entirely they were in the old times, before Henry II. or Cromwell came over here. But her father's people got into trouble ten or fifteen years ago, about a boy that was killed up there by the side of the mountain. There was an old man that used to go about with her in my time, that is, five years ago come Candlemas, when I came to this place, and they said he was her father. He was a pilgrim, and only took food or a night's lodging. He had 'made his soul,' good man, whatever had gone again him, and one day he was found lying dead under a hedge, and she, poor innocent, sitting beside him, not crying nor screeching, but just as quiet as if she were watching an infant asleep in its cradle."

"How very odd."

"True for you, ma'am. But if you please, the car is waiting, and it's myself forgot to tell you."

I forthwith mounted the said car, and holding on as well as I could, contrived to reach the house where I was to be a visitor, and where, having described the apparition that had interested me so much at the inn, I was told the history I now record.

Eveleen O'Connor was the daughter of a farmer who in England might be said to be well to do in the world, but who in Ireland derived more importance among his neighbours from the honours of his traditionary ancestry than from the number of acres he was able to farm.

Brian O'Connor, on the authority of his family tradition, and in the pedantic language of the hedge-schoolmaster, could boast of being descended in a direct and mathematically straight line from the ancient kings of Ireland; his claim was considered too clear to be disputed; he was an O'Connor, and, therefore, a descendant of the famous Roderick O'Connor, who, in Brian's most eloquent phraseology," was the renowned and unfortunate king of a renowned and unfortunate land." His hereditary pride was, however, chiefly displayed in the harmless garrulity of a good-hearted old man: in his only son, who, after their illustrious ancestor, was named Roderick, though always called Rory, pride assumed a darker character, because it was allied to a disagreeable and even repulsive disposition-a character scarcely comprehensible to the plain and plodding English farmer who might possess ten times his wealth.

Brian was a widower; he had remained so from the time when his youngest child—a girl some years younger than her brother-had been born. The neighbours said "he doted down on Eveleen, who took more after him than dark Rory did, and hadn't one bit more pride nor stiffness than if she had come of nobody and wasn't to have a fortune;" for Eveleen VOL. VIII.-NO. 46. 24.

grew up to be eighteen years of age, and was gay, handsome, happy,

and wilful.

His sister's demeanour was often a sore grievance to Rory; she shrank from his dark looks when he reproved her, and if she saw he was really angry; but when she could venture to do so she tossed her handsome head defiantly, laughed at his vexation, and repeated the conduct that gave him displeasure, winning her own way or taking it, and showing no more conceit or haughtiness at wake or wedding, rustic dance or evening walk, than any country beauty might do independently of pride of pedigree or portion.

Eveleen O'Connor was the natural product of her country; openhearted, impulsive, and thoughtless; entering heartily into all present enjoyment with utter recklessness of future consequences, yet full also of deep passionate feeling, and keenly sensitive to what others thought of her. She was believed to have had a first-rate education; she could read, sprig muslin, and it was said she could write; it was a fact that she had worked something like a dog in worsteds, which was framed and hung up in the parlour, or "room," as that seldom-used apartment of an Irish farmhouse is commonly called; and which, in addition to that ornament, boasted a boarded floor and a mahogany table, while the deep windowseat held the whole family library, consisting of four smoke-browned volumes of a fabulous history of Ireland in days, I believe, before the Flood, and having the pages relating to King Roderick much worn by frequent and very laborious perusal.

One Sunday dark Rory came into dinner with a countenance still darker than usual: the thunder-cloud soon burst. He was furious at having heard that his sister had been again seen walking with Jem Delaney: "a fellow she ought to scorn to look at the same side of the way with, and whom she had so often been warned to drop."

Eveleen did not now toss her head, or laugh, or scoff at her brother's queer notions. She coloured, and then grew pale; shrank from his angry and searching gaze, and looked to her father as if for help. The timid old man, always anxious to conciliate the exasperated pair, began a sort of exhortation with the words

"There now, alanna, have done, will ye? it can't be helped now. You won't be after doing so again, Eveleen, astore; don't now, agra."

"You won't go for to side with Rory against me, father dear?” cried the girl in a voice of supplication that came from the heart. Its tone was enough for Rory; he threw back his chair, and, stopping for a moment before he left the room, he swore a deep and deliberate oath to be the death of Delaney if ever his sister demeaned herself by thinking of him.

Eveleen knew well what thinking of him meant; she knew she was thinking of him just in the way her brother wanted her not to think; the dish she held fell from her hands on the floor, and he, looking at her white face, added as an additional warning, a fresh asseveration to his horrid vow, and set off to the next market town, where he intended to