[Footnote 13: "A propos to fools; that gentleman is in love--that is not very surprising; but is the fair lady equally enamoured?" "Oh! Heaven forbid!"] Colonel Desmond now pointed out to Adelaide's notice the hill of Allen, from whence the bog so called takes its appellation. The English name of "Isle of Allen" is only a corruption of the Irish _Hy alain_, that is, the district of the great plain country. This bog contains three hundred thousand acres, extending through parts of the King's and Queen's counties, and those of Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, Roscommon, Galway, and Tipperary. The hill of Allen, according to the traditions of the country, is the scene of action of Ossian's poem of Temora. On the south declivity of the hill is said to be the cave where Oscar's body was laid immediately after his death, over which his faithful dog Bran watched, as so beautifully described by the poet. A few feet from the front of the cave is a well, sacred to his manes, which is still much frequented by pilgrims: on the same declivity is the tomb of the hero, marked by one gray stone: through the valley below runs the rivulet, near which the battle was fought in which he lost his life; and to the west of the cave is seen the extensive plain of Molena, in the King's county, from which rises the ancient Cromla, now called Croan Hill. Colonel Desmond produced a beautiful edition of Ossian he had bought for his niece Miss Desmond, and reading parts of Temora, pointed out these coincidencies to Adelaide; who, when he had done, begged to look at the volume, and happening to turn to the episode of Oithona, read the following passage with no common interest: "_Why camest thou over the dark blue waves to Nuath's mournful daughter? Why did I not pass away in secret, like the flower of the rock, that lifts its fair head unseen, and strews its withered leaves on the blast?_" As he marked the altered hue and mournful expression of her angelic countenance, he accused himself of cruel thoughtlessness in having raised painful associations in her mind; now recollecting, that though Baron Wildenheim never spoke the language, yet he was well acquainted with English literature, and that Ossian was his favourite poet, whose sombre images peculiarly accorded with the dark melancholy that seemed to overshadow his soul. "Happy the man," thought Desmond, as he gazed on Adelaide, "who shall dry the tears I see from time to time rise in those beautiful eyes! How different is she now from what she was at Vienna! Then her brilliant charms dazzled the eye and the mind; but though her youthful bloom and her playful vivacity seem to have been laid in her father's grave, yet she is more lovely than ever: she is, as Ossian says in the poem she has now turned to, 'Like a spirit of Heaven half-folded in the skirt of a cloud.'"