On the evening in question, no one had been invited but M'Carthy and Fergus O'Driscol.

The heroic magistrate, however, ever since the receipt of the threatening letter, would not suffer his son (who certainly participated in none of his father's cowardice), to dine abroad at all, lest his absence and well-known intrepidity might induce the Whiteboys, or other enemies of law, to attack the house when its principal defence was from home.

The evening, therefore, hung heavy on their heads at Longshot Lodge, which was the name of Purcel's residence, especially upon that of the fair Julia, who felt not merely disappointed, but unusually depressed' by the unaccountable absence of her lover, knowing as she did, the turbulence which prevailed in the country.

She scarcely ate any dinner, and in the course of a short time retired to her own room, which commanded a view of the way by which he should approach the house, where she watched, casement up, until she heard a foot in the avenue, which, however, her acute ear, well accustomed to McCarthy's, soon told her was not that of her lover.

On looking more closely she perceived, however, that it was Mogue Moylan; and, unable to restrain her impatience, she raised the window still higher, and called down as Mogue passed under it, on his way round to the kitchen, but in a low, earnest voice, with, as Mogue thought, a good deal of confidential in it, "Is that Mogue ?" "Eh!" he exclaimed, struck almost on the instant into a state of ecstacy; "Is that Miss Julia ?" "Yes, Mogue," she replied, in the same low voice, "I do not wish to run the risk of speaking to you from this; stay there, and I will go to one of the windows of the front parlor." "Well," thought Mogue, "it is come to this at last?
oh, thin, but I was a blackguard haythen an' nothing else ever to think of you, Letty Lenehan, or any low-born miscreant like you.