They went up together, Jack holding her by the hand and helping her on. When they had reached the top and filled their pails, he proposed to go down the other side of the hill, the distance being a little shorter. It was steeper and more slippery it was true, but still he thought he could venture. He went first, with a full pail in his hand, and Jill followed behind him. They had not gone more than half-way down when Jack’s feet began to slide over the smooth, steep ground, and down he fell on his side, and rolled, over and over. Poor Jill screamed, leaned forward, and, in her turn, fell and rolled down the hill behind Jack. On they went, over and over down the hill, like a couple of cricket-balls, and nothing could stop them till they came to the bottom. The mere rolling down hill would not perhaps have have done them any great harm, for the ground at that part was soft and grassy; but the worst of it was that Jill’s pail—when it fell from her hand—struck Jack’s head, and it went bump! bump! all the way down-hill close to him, hitting him now and then on the ribs rather roughly. They were both picked up at the foot of the hill, and placed, carefully, side by side in a cart, with a truss of straw strewn over it to relieve the jolting. It was soon evident that Jill, though a good deal frightened, was not much hurt; but Jack’s fall was somewhat serious. His head was bleeding, and, when the Doctor examined him, he said, that two of his ribs were broken. A day or two’s nursing brought Jill round again, for there was nothing seriously the matter with her; but Jack’s illness kept him to his bed some weeks. Stars shine in the night, and so love burns with peculiar fervour in the hours of affliction and sorrow. Jill and her mother waited upon their patient with tenderest care. His food and his medicine were given to him by their gentle hands; he sank into slumber at night with the echoes of their prayers in his ears; and when he awoke in the morning, the first eye-beams that met his own were theirs. The love in his heart strengthened, and grew under such influences. He made all sorts of generous resolves as to what he would do when he got well—how hard he would work! how prudent and careful he would be! Nothing was too hard to do or to endure, to gain such a wife as Jill. With such excellent nursing, Jack recovered in due time, and came out of his illness quite well and cheerful, One evening, after his recovery, he was seated in the widow’s kitchen, talking to Jill and Betsey, while they arranged their garden-pots of flowers in the window, when the door opened, and Father M’Callagh, the parish priest, entered the room, holding a letter in his hand.