shone the remote sweetness of Sarah Curran. He was told that revolutionary hopes were ripening fast; he was thus lured back in October, 1802. His absence had lasted nearly three years. The separation had probably taught Sarah something more of her own heart. Immediately Emmet’s visits to the Priory were resumed, as if in the general stream of homage which brought so many enthusiastic young men into Mr. Curran’s presence, at evening, to listen and gather wisdom. Dr. Emmet died in April, much lamented, and by his will Robert came into possession of considerable ready money. He spent it instantly, effectively, and entirely on preparations for armed resistance. No one suspected it; those in his confidence were yet faithful. Still less did others suspect the now plighted attachment, the innocent love hungry for joy, and yet hurried on to dark ends through devious and hidden ways. Mr. Curran’s strenuous opposition, on all grounds, was necessarily taken for granted, until some prodigious success should befall Emmet, and as if by a spell free the daughter who so feared her father. Sarah knew detail by detail of the conspiracy as it arose, and was fain with all her soul to encourage its progress. For the two sensitive creatures under so complicated a strain there passed an anxious and exciting year. The most disagreeable surprise of Mr. Curran’s life was yet to come before it ended. Robert Emmet took lodgings under an assumed name in Butterfield Lane, in the suburb of Rathfarnham. His agents came to him by night and reported their progress. The record of all he had meant to do, drawn up with manly composure at the brink of the grave, may be read elsewhere. As has been noted, his plan for the capture of Dublin and the summoning of the patriotic Members of Parliament was clearly founded on an inspiring precedent, that of the Revolution of 1640 in Portugal, when but two-score clever and resolute men served to deliver the whole country from the yoke of Spain. But when the hour of Ireland’s destiny struck, every clock-wheel went wrong. If the failure were not so piteous, because of one’s interest in the doomed wizard and his suddenly disenchanted wand, it would be grotesque. Emmet had studied with enormous industry, and arranged with masterly precision, directing, among pikes and powder in his dingy depôts, each needful move and counter-move for a concerted rising; he thought it strange that in every conceivable way, major and minor, the whole scheme simultaneously miscarried.