When the ladies retired to the drawing-room after dinner, Miss Fitzcarril proposed walking. Mrs. O'Sullivan was anxious that Adelaide and Caroline should study the good of their health by this exercise, but pleaded fatigue as an excuse for declining the promenade herself, wishing to profit by the opportunity their absence would afford, to interrogate Theresa as to the nature and extent of the Ballinamoyle property, and a thousand other et cetera. Her two elder daughters, to whom she had before dinner mentioned her distress at having her anxiety for information on this subject so long unsatisfied, understood her manoeuvre, and remained to assist in the gratification of their mutual curiosity. Adelaide and Caroline accordingly set out on their ramble. Miss Fitzcarril, in her anxious civility, attended them as far as the hall door; she had scarcely reached it, when a voice accosted her with "I want to spake a word to you, Miss Teree—za." "Well, nurse!" "Will you be plased to give me some whisky for Jimmy Maloony—the paltry fellow! he let the dinner fall bringing it up, and the spalpeen has cut his leg very bad; but it was God saved the puddin, Miss!" Adelaide's eyes were attracted towards the speaker, and she saw a fresh coloured old woman, dressed in a rich flowered silk gown, underneath which appeared a pair of coarse shoes and worsted stockings. The gown was open before, and would have trailed on the ground, had it not been turned back and pinned up behind, just to touch the edge of a striped green stuff petticoat, which was surmounted in front with a fine linen apron as white as snow. Her gray hair was rolled back over a cushion, and a mob cap was pinned under her chin, the head piece ornamented with a cherry coloured riband put once round her head, the ends turned back again just to the ears, and a flat bow pinned on in front. It was not surprising that the silk gown, which nurse wore in honour of the strangers' arrival, should be old fashioned in make and texture, as she had received it, according to custom, on the day Mr. O'Sullivan's daughter had cut her first tooth. Miss Fitzcarril, before she complied with the old woman's demands, directed Adelaide how best to proceed from the hall door, to the following effect: "Do you see that walk to the right? well, then you're not to go down that, only just as far as the old oak, and then there is another to the left, mind you don't take that, it leads to the shaking bog, but keep strait forward, and that will bring you round and round to the back of the house." From which it appeared that they were neither to turn to the right nor the left, but to proceed in a strait line, which would conduct them home in a circle from the front to the back of the house!

When the two young ladies set off, Miss Fitzcarril returned to nurse; and while she felt for a key, amongst its numerous fellows at the bottom of a pocket long enough to cover her arm up to the elbow, shaking it two or three times in a manner that showed what metal she carried; the ancient dame said to her, "Our young lady that is to be, is the making of a pretty girl, God bless her! But I'd rather it was her comrade, she has more of the portly air and jaunteel walk of the O'Sullivans than any of them. The others are no great shakes of ladies. But it's none of them all would be a patch upon my sweet Rose if she was alive! Och Rose dear, why did you lave your ould mammy to go wid a foreigner? Wouldn't his honour have given ye gould to eat if ye chose it, and weren't you as merry as a grig the live long day? It's but little you're happier, now you're a blessed angel in Heaven, for you lament ye for your poor father and ould nurse; and you're not a whit beautifuller or better than you were here. Many's the mass we say for your sowl; but ye're fitter to pray for us poor sinful craturs than we for you. Weary on ye, Limerick, that ever ye rose on the face of God's earth, for ye lost me my sweet child." The poor old woman beat her breast as this burst of sorrow escaped her lips, and the tears rolled down the furrows of her aged cheeks in torrents. "Nurse! nurse!" said Theresa, sobbing, "don't take on so; if your master sees or hears you, you'll make him ill again: you know what trouble he was in this morning, and that he wouldn't have the first sight of the little girl before mortal breathing, but sent for her to his own room." "Well, well, I'll soon lay my gray head in under the sod; it isn't fit a poor cratur like me should mislist his honour." When Miss Fitzcarril had composed herself, and dispatched nurse with a "drap of comfort" to the kitchen, she returned to the drawing-room, and then answered the interrogatories her visitors put to her in such a manner, as much to strengthen the favourable impression, which the marshalling of the tenantry had made on their minds in the morning; and, without giving any one direct answer, managed to exalt her own and her cousin's consequence considerably in their estimation.

Theresa, keeping ever in mind the fortune-teller's prediction, which she graciously interpreted in young Webberly's favour, was extremely anxious to ingratiate herself with his mother and sisters, and therefore had by this time almost forgiven the former her proposition of blocking up the windows of the revered apartment, as well as the affronting supposition, that Black Frank appertained to the regular establishment of Ballinamoyle; and the wheedling civility Mrs. O'Sullivan showed her, encouraged her hopes and her efforts; more especially as Jack, in compliance with his parent's wishes, had been particularly attentive to her in the course of the day. Mrs. O'Sullivan had that morning convinced her children it was for their interest, that Caroline should be her uncle's heiress, as she promised in that case not to leave her any of her own riches. She had been induced to hold out this bribe to them, from perceiving the extreme rudeness with which they were inclined to treat all around them, which she feared would disgust their host, whose uniform urbanity was not less conspicuous.

With the Miss Webberlys, interest was scarcely a counterpoise to ill temper, conceit, and ennui; and therefore their deportment varied every half hour, according to the feeling of the moment. But in the composition of their brother, ill nature had not been added to folly and presumption; he was therefore constant in his endeavours to please, in which he was also encouraged by the hopes, that the success of this scheme might "put the old lady in a good humour, and make her come down handsomely when he married Miss Wildenheim, which he would as soon as they returned to England, please the pigs." Of the young lady's being pleased he had little doubt; "her being so confoundedly shy was all a sham."

Whilst Miss Fitzcarril and Mrs. O'Sullivan were playing against each other, in the conversation which took place between them in the drawing-room, Adelaide and Caroline pursued their ramble. At a little distance from the house, one of the most beautiful scenes in nature presented itself to their view.—A lake, of considerable extent, rose from the bosom of rocky hills, whose bold forms were reflected in its pellucid waters. It contained several islands, some with fine trees, some grazed by cattle, and covered with the most brilliant verdure. On the centre island stood the ruins of an old castle half covered with ivy. To the south of the lake was a fine champaign country, and behind the house rose a beautiful hill of great height, covered from the base to the summit with an indigenous wood. To the right a narrow defile opened into a wild and romantic country, showing mountains of the most picturesque forms. The varied lights, which the declining sun threw on this enchanting scene, gave it every beauty of exquisite colouring. "Oh! look there, Adele!" said Caroline, "doesn't the lake and its islands look as if it was let down from Heaven by that beautiful rainbow that touches it at both sides? Oh, how I should like to walk up it!" "And then," thought Adelaide, as she looked at the lovely child, "you might join the company of the sylphs, whilst they 'pleas'd untwist the sevenfold threads of light.'" Just at this moment an odd looking man came close up, and taking off an old regimental cap, said, "I see you're some of the strange quality ladies; you're quite out of the right track,"—(rather surprising after Miss Fitzcarril's explicit directions.) "I'll show ye'z round the place, and take ye'z to the garden, if you're agreeable." "Thank you, my good man, I shall be much obliged to you: pray may I ask your name?"—"They call me Jarge Quin at the big house, Miss, because I was so long at the wars, where I lost my right eye. I'm his honour's gardiner; and a brave kind master he is til me, the Lord love him!" Jarge proceeded to do the honours; and delighted by the questions Adelaide asked, became more than usually loquacious. "Thon mountain that's foreninst ye, Miss, (said he,) is Croagh Patrick; on the top of it is an altar, where many a good Christian goes to tell their padereenes, on Patricksmas day. It's the very self same spot where St. Patrick stood, when he called all the snakes and toads, and varmint of all sorts, up the one side, and bid them, and their heirs for ever, go down the t'other intil the sea, and be aff till Inglant; and that's the rason the folks over the water have been so hard with us, ever since that blessed day, no blame to you, Miss." "And what's that mountain, shaped like a sugar loaf, more to the south?" "I don't know what name the quality give it, Miss; but we semples call it, Altoir na Griene[2], the name they say it had in ould times, afore St. Patrick stood on the other mountain."

"Do you see that ould castle there, over aginst ye, in the lake? That's where the family used to live, afore the new house was built, seventy year agone next Hollontide; and now the good people dance in it every moonlight night." "And, pray, who are the good people?" "The little people, Miss, the fairies.—Many's the time Judy Maloony sees them chasing each other, when they slide down the moon beams, to play swing swang on the stalks of the ivy leaves.—And, she says, they sail across the lake in butter cups, to the lavender hedge in the garden, when it's in flower, to make themselves caps and jackets; and she gathers the thistle's beard, to sarve them for threads, afore the sun sets, and as sure as you live, there's never a bit of it there in the morning.

"Do you see that big stone, Miss, a little up the mountain there? That by the side of the stream they call the goulden river; and that's the place the boys and girls sit, of a summer's evening, to steal unknownst upon the Loughrie men—ould men, about as big as my hand, looking as sour as you plase; but if you'll thrape it out to them, ye won't let them aff when ye catch them—they'll show you a power of gould they've hid in under the earth."

Adelaide, though highly amused herself, thought she would give audience to Jarge another time, not thinking his conversation very edifying to Caroline, who, with "locks thrown back, and lips apart," was eagerly listening to every word he said; and therefore proposed returning home. But Jarge, looking much disappointed, said,—"Och! and won't ye be plased just to step intil the gardin? it's in iligant order for ye'z just now; I doubt ye'll never see it as nate again." Accordingly they were ushered into a walled garden, three Irish acres in extent, well stocked with vegetables; but at least one third of it was planted with potatoes. It however produced a quantity of fruit, which almost exhausted Theresa's patience in preserving for herself and her friends the Desmonds; for he would have been a bold wight, that would have ventured to suggest to one of the name of O'Sullivan the propriety of selling fruit. It was much more consonant to their dignity to let, what they or their friends could not consume, rot under the trees. A great gate opened on a gravel walk (besides the entrance door) on which Mr. O'Sullivan's father had driven his coach and four all round the walks. But these walks, though just then, as Jarge Quin said, in "iligant order," were not usually remarkable for neatness. In their progress round the garden, they came to a very beautiful flower bed, and Adelaide put out her hand to pull a rose that tempted her sight.—Jarge hastily stopped her, saying, "You're welcome, as the flowers of May, to any thing, but that, at Ballinamoyle; his honour will have that himself the morra. Before I went to the wars, I dug the place for Miss Rose to plant the tree with her own beautiful hands. In the bed we always put the same sorting of flowers, after the very moral of what she left them; and no soul ever pulls them but his honour, and nurse Delany, who dresses the altar, in Miss Rose's room, with them; and lays them about her monument in the chapel, where she's cut out in white marble more nat'ral than the life."

Adelaide made many apologies for the sacrilege she had been about to commit; and as she entered the house felt all the wounds of her heart bleed afresh, as she thought, "so would my beloved father have mourned for me."