"Did I never sing you the old Irish song I claim as my own?" "You never sang for me at all." "What! you have been here a whole week, and I have never sung for you?" With widely-opened eyes of pure surprise. "What could I have been thinking about? Do you know, I sing very nicely." This without the faintest atom of conceit. "Listen, then, and I will sing to you now." With her hands clasped around her knees, her head bare, her tresses a little loosened by the wind, and her large eyes fixed upon the distant hills, she thus sweetly sings: "Oh, Molly Bawn! why leave me pining, All lonely waiting here for you, While the stars above are brightly shining, Because they've nothing else to do? Oh, Molly Bawn! Molly Bawn! "The flowers late were open keeping, To try a rival blush with you, But their mother, Nature, set them sleeping With their rosy faces washed in dew. Oh, Molly Bawn! Molly Bawn! "The village watch-dog here is snarling; He takes me for a thief, you see; For he knows I'd steal you, Molly darling, And then transported I should be! Oh, Molly Bawn! Molly Bawn!" "An odd old song, isn't it?" she says, presently, glancing at him curiously, when she has finished singing, and waited, and yet heard no smallest sound of praise. "You do not speak. Of what are you thinking?" "Of the injustice of it," says he, in a low, thoughtful tone. "Had you not a bounteous store already when this last great charm was added on? Some poor wretches have nothing, some but a meagre share, while you have wrested from Fortune all her best gifts,--beauty----" "No, no! stop!" cries Molly, gayly; "before you enumerate the good things that belong to me, remember that I still lack the chiefest: I have no money. I am without doubt the most poverty-stricken of your acquaintances. Can any confession be more humiliating? Good sir, my face is indeed my fortune. Or is it my voice?" pausing suddenly, as though a cold breath from the dim hereafter had blown across her cheek. "I hardly know." "A rich fortune either way." "And here I am recklessly imperiling one," hastily putting on her hat once more, "by exposing my precious skin to that savage sun. Come,--it is almost cool now,--let us have a good race down the hill." She slips her slender fingers within his,--a lovable trick of hers, innocent of coquetry,--and, Luttrell conquering with a sigh a wild desire to clasp and kiss the owner of those little clinging fingers on the spot, together they run down the slope into the longer grass below, and so, slowly and more decorously, journey homeward. * * * * * On their return they find the house still barren of inmates; no sign of the master or mistress anywhere. Even the servants are invisible. "It might almost be the enchanted palace," says Molly.