CHAPTER IV.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 25, 14 October 1887, Page 27

CHAPTER IV.

Four years passed away, and Jamie and Mary had grown accustomed to their improved circumstances, Lady Betty having proved as good as her word in bestowing on them all those benefits which she had enumerated when coaxing Ailaie away with her. Whether they were quite satisfied with the freak that fortune had played with them, they themselves knew best. When a neighbour went in to see them, Mary had always some grand talk about " my daughter, Miss MacQuillan "; but the widow Devnish often shook her head, saying they were dull enough when nobody was by, and feared Ailsie had forgotten them.

Ned Muckelhern, and Mehaffey the miller, had each consoled himself with a wife long ago. Hughie Devnish still taught his school, and bis mother still called him in to his supper of evenings ; but he «■ as not the same Hughie, the wi tow vowed, never since the night of Lady Betty's ball, when he had taken the stiange whim of going serving at the castle. That some one had put a charm on him that night, from the eff-cts of which he had n^ver recovered, was the widow Devnish 's firm belief. He was "as grave as a judge," she said, from morning till night, all wiapped up in the improvement of his school, never would go to a dance or a fair like other young men, and say what she might to Lite, would admit no thought "of taking a wife, though his means w^uld allow of it now, since he had got soms tuitions among the gentry folks of the neighbourhood. The widow Devnibh was very proud of her son, but she was sorely afraid there was "something on him." For, stiangeat of all. once, when she came into his schoolroom at dusk unnoticed, she saw him looking at a little kid shoe, with long silken bandals hanging from it. " She'll forget," he was s.iying, as he turned it about and wound the silken aaudals round it, " of course, of course, she'll forget."

All this time, while things had been going on si with these vulgar and insignificant folks at home, neither Ailsie or Lidy Betty had been seen at < 'attle Craigie. Lady Betty surroutidod her protegee with French, Italian, drawing, and music masters. But with these had Ailsie concerned herself but little. "Hughie Devnish could never tacbe me," she would say, coolly, when they were ready to wring their hands with vexation, " an' I don't think its likely ye're any cleverer than him." However, there were some things that Ailsie did learn in time. Being observant and imitative, she acquired a habit of fpeaking tolerable French, and when talking English she modified, though she did not by any means give up, her brogue. She very soon learned to flirt a fan, to carry her handsome gowns with ease, and lo develop certain original graces of manner, which were considered by many to be very charming in the pretty heiress of Lady Betty's Indian thousands. Altogether, the patroness found herself obliged to be content, though the young lady could read neither French nor Italian, nor yet could she play on the spinnet or guitar. Ailsiu's education being thus finished, L'idy Betty set her heart on an ambitious marriage for her favourite. Sac introduced her to society in Faiis, ami taw her making conquests rignt and left at the mobt fastn.nable watering-places on the continent. Ailsie's sparkling eyes were enchantingly foiled by her diamonds, ani proposals in plenty wer# laid at her feet. But Ailsie, though enjoying right merrily the homage so freely paid to her, only laughed at the offers of marriage, as though it were quite impossible to regard them as anything but so many very capital jokes. Lnciy Betty did not join in this view of the maitei, but she had patience with her heirass tor a consideiable time, as Ailsie always mollified her displeasure by saying, on her lefut-al ct each " good match," " I will marry a better man stilL Lady Butty "

After four years Lady Betty, who was a wilful old lady, and whose patience was exhausted, quarreled with her ahout it, and befoie she iecovered her temper she took ill and died, and Ailsie found hersjlf one day sad and solitary in Paris, without the protection of her kind indulgent friend.

Tears would not mend the matter now, nor would they alter tha will which Lady Betty had left behind her, the conditions of which were fair enough, said Ailsie's suitors, when the contents of the important document became knowa. One year had the impatient old lady given her chosen heiress, in the space of which time to become a wife. And if at the end of that year she was still found to be a spinster, not a penny had she, but might go bick to the cottage at the top of the lonau, and take back with her her father and mother to work for them as before, to milk her cows, find feed her hens, and persuade herself, if she liked, that her wit, and her diamonds, and her beauty, and her lovers, had all had their existence in a tantalising dream, which had visited her between roosting-time in the evening »nd cock-crow of a churning morning. But, should she marry before the year was out, bestowing on her husband the name of MacQnilUn, then would the shade of Lady Betty be appeased, and the Indian thousands and the Irish rentals, together with the old ancestial halls of Castle Craigie, would all belong to Ailsie and the fortunate possesser of her wealthy little hand.

Very fair conditions, said the Buitora, and proposals poured in on Ailste. But lo and behold 1 the flinty-hearted damsel proved m obstinate as ever ; and, in the midst of wonderment aod disappointment, having attained the age of twenty-one, and being altogether her own mistress, she wrote to her retainers at Castle Craigie to announce her arrival there upon a certain summer day. Great was the glory of Mary MacQuillan when she received a letter from her daughter, desiring that her father and mother should at once take up their abode at the castle, being there to receive her on her arrival. Great, indeed, was her triumph when Miss O'Trimmins sat making her a gown of brown velvet, and a lace cap with lappets, in which to meet her child, and wheu Jamie's blue coat with the bright gold buttons came home.

Ailsie brought a whole horde of foreigners with her, brilliant ladies of rank, who called her pet and darling in broken English and needy marquises — and counts with slender means, who were nevertheless rery magnificent persons, and still hoped to win the Irish charmer. Balls, plays, and sports of all kinds went on atthe Castle, and those of the gentry-folks who, from curiosity, or a better feeling, came to visit Ailsie ,found her in the midst of a roomful of glittering company, dressed in a blue satin sacque and pearl earrings, with her hair dipping into her eyes in very bewitching little curls, and seated between Mary in the brown velvet and lappets, and Jamie in tha new coat with the buttons. They went away saying she was wonderful indeed, considering, delightfully odd and pretty, and they wondered which of those flaunting foreigners she was going to marry in the ena. Meantime the year was flying away, and tbe old neighbours of her mother's began to shake their heads over the fire, of nights, and to say that if Ailsie did not take care, she might be a pennileaa lass yet.

Things were in this position when, one fine morning, Miss MacQuillan, driving out with some of her grand friends, thought proper to stop at the door of Hughie Devnish's echoolhouse. The schoolmaster turned red and then pale, as he saw Ailsie's feathers coming nodding in to him through the doorway, followed by a brilliant party of grandees, and two footmen dragging a huge parcel of presents for his girls and b >ys. Ailsie coolly set her ladies and gentleman unpacking tbe parcel and distributing its contents, whilst she questioned the schoolmaster upon many subjects with the air of a little duchess, whose humour it was to make inquiries, and who never, certainly, had seen that place, much less conversed with that person before. Hugbie endured her whim with proud patience, till, just before she left him, oa opening his desk to restore a book to its place, sba demanded to see a certain little dark thing which was peeping out from uader some papers. Then with evident annoyance, he produced a liitle black kid shod. So the story runs. " Why, it's only a slipper 1 " said Ailsie, turning it about and looking at it, just as the widow Devni9h had detected Hughie in doing. " What an odd thing to keep a hhoe in a desk 1 Bat it looked like the cover of a book. Good morning."

As tne party drove off, it is sud that one of the gentlemen remarked that i he scnuolmasfcer was a fine-looking intelligent felluvr, fit for a better station than that which he filled. And it is further faaid that next da/ Ailsie made a present to this gentleman of a auuffbox worth a hundred guineas. When Ailsie went to her room on her return home on this August afternoon, she walked over to a handsome gold casket which stood upon her table, unlocked it, and took out a little kid slipper, which looked as if she must have stolen it out of Hughie's desk. In the sol« of it was pinned a slip of paper, on which were scrawled, in a crude hand, the words :

'• If ever I forget you, Hughie Devnish, to marry a fine gentleman, may the Ljrd turn my gran' /jowns iuto rags ageu, and the bit that I ate into sand in my mouth."

" And the Lord's goin' to do it very fast," said Ailsie, falling back into her old way of talking, as she looked at this specimen of her old way of writing, '• if 1 do wot look to 't very sojn, an' be keepin 1 my word 1 An' God knows, Hughie DevenUh," she added, as she 1, eked her box again with a sharp snap, " you're more of a gentleman any day the sun jises oa you, tnan ever poor AUsie '11 be of a lady 1"

And I am given to understand that shortly af cer this the lady of the castle sent a message to her guests to say that she was indispobed (Ailsie had picked up a few pretty words) from the heat, and must beg them to excuse her absence from amongst them for the rest of the day.

It was on this very evening that Hughie Devnieh was walking up and down his schoolroom floor, musing, I am told, on the impossibility of his enduring in the futuru to have Ail&i>j coming into his school at any hour she pleased, to play the mischief with his feelings, ami the lady patroness amongst his boys and girls. He had just enrau to the poiut of resolving to give up his labours here, and go off lv seek his fortune in America, when click 1 went the latch of tue door, aud coiuse, thinks he, it must be a dream) in walked Ailsie. Not tbe Lady Bountiful of the morning, in satin gown and nodding

feather?, but the veritable old Ailsie of four years ago, in the same JK^L garb cotton dress, brogues, straw bonnet tipped over her nose, kind all (where on earth did she get them 1) in which she bad tripped in to him on that other August evening, of which this was the anniversary, when she had shown him her invitation to Lady Betty's ball. Now, the gloaming was just putting out the glare of the sunset behind the latticed windows, and when Hughie had pinched himself and found that he was not dreaming at all, he next became very sure that he had gone out of his senses with trouble, and chat he was looking at an object conjured up before his eyes by his own diseased imagination. However, the apparition looked veiy substantial as it approached, and sitting down on the end of one of the forms, it displayed a paper which it unfolded in its hands—hands that were white instead of blown, making the only difference between this and the old Ailsie. "I've got a letther here, Misther Devnish," said Ailsie's old voice, speaking with Ailsie's old brogue, and in the sly, mischievous tone that Hughie remembered so well : " an' if ye plase, I want ye to answer it for me. I'm a bad dark myeel', ye know." Not knowing what to say to her, he took the letter out of her hand and glanced over it. It was a proposal of marriage from Ailsie's old tormentor, MacQuil'au of the heck. The schoolTPast?r was trembling, you may believe, with many confused ideas and sensations when he folded the letter and returned it ; but he inked bis pen manfully, and produced a shest of paper, then sat waiting with much patience for his visitor's dictation. But Ai'sie sat quiet, with her eyes upon the floor, and so there was a cruel pause. " Well ?" says Hughie, at last, with a bewitched feeling, ap if he were addressing only his pupil of old days, " what am I to say in the answer ?" " Feth, I don't know," says Ailsie. "But what reply do you mean to give?" asked Hughie, striving, we are assured, to command himself. "Aml to say yes or no in the letter!" " I tell ye I don't know, Hughie Devnish," said Ailsie crossly. " I gave a promise to another, an' he never has freed me from it yet. I b'lieve yell know best what to put in the letther ytrsel'." " Ailsie 1 " cried Hughie rising to his feet, " did you come here for nothing but to dhrive me mad ? Or, avoumeen, is it possible you would marry me yet ? " " Feth it is Hugbie," said Ailsie. And after the letter wab written they went in and had tea with the widow Devnish. The next morning Miss MacQaillan appeared amongst her guests as if nothing had happened, but before night a whisper flew from ear to ear that the heiress was engaged ; while the lady hersalf did not contiadict the report. Every man looked darkly at his neighbour, abd " Who is he ? " was the question on every lip. At last "It is not I," said one noble drune, and flew off to seek honey elsewhere ; and " It is not I," said the others, oue by one, and fol'owred his example ; and by-and-bye Ailsie was peacefully in possession of her castle; wbereup.jn there was a quiet wedding, at which Mary, Jamie, and the widow Devn'sh weie the only guests. A nine days' wonder expires od the tenth, and after a few years Hugh Devnish MacQuillan, Esq., was looked upon as do despicable peison by many who thougut it their duty to sneer on his weddingday.