.

-- A Dance, and Double Discovery.
The dance to which Sarah M'Gowan went after the conflict with her step-mother, was but a miserable specimen of what a dance usually is in Ireland.

On that occasion, there were but comparatively few assembled; and these few, as may be guessed, consisted chiefly of those gay and frolicsome spirits whom no pressure of distress, nor anything short of sickness or death, could sober down into seriousness.

The meeting, in fact, exhibited a painful union of mirth and melancholy.

The season brought with it none of that relief to the peasantry which usually makes autumn so welcome.