The letter was sent, and the veil came home; And by noon on the morrow the bride was arrayed; And a gorgeous train and cavalcade Set out for the Khadi’s palace-dome. They journeyed till sunset purpled the sky, And now, alas! her trial is nigh-- Her trial is nigh, her bosom is swelling; They come within sight of Ibrahim’s dwelling-- They near the gates--ah, well-a-day! Her children cannot mistake their mother-- “Mamma! Mamma! ah, don’t go away!” They cry, and their voices drown one another. That mother groaned in her wretchedness! “Live long!” she said, “my Lord and Master! Mayest thou ever defy Disaster! May thy shadow never be less! Bid, I implore thee, the cavalcade wait A moment in front of the Aga’s gate, While I go into the house, and leave Some gifts with my little ones, lest they grieve.” Silently then, like a ghost from the tombs, She enters once more the remembered rooms, Gives to her sons little gold-laced boots, Gives to her daughters little kapoots,[2] And leaves with the babe in the cradle-bed Some toys and a basket of sugar-bread. Now, the desolate father was standing apart, And he marked that she neither spake nor sighed, And Agony wrung his manly heart-- “Come, come to me, hither, my children!” he cried, “For I see that your mother’s bosom is grown Colder and harder than marble stone.” But, as soon as Ayoob heard Ibrahim speak, And saw her children turning away, She fell on the floor without a shriek, And without a stir on the floor she lay; And the funeral-wailers of Islambol Were chanting ere night the hymn for her soul.[3] M. [1] The incidents of this narrative are founded on fact. [2] Cloaks. [3] The popular notion that the Mohammedans deny immortality to the souls of women is altogether a mistake, as will be apparent to any one who takes the trouble of looking through the Koran. OROHOO, THE FAIRY MAN, A REMINISCENCE OF CONNAUGHT. Were we to believe the chronicles of our grandmothers, Ireland at one period was held in fee-simple by witches, warlocks, white ladies, fairies, and leprahauns; the earth, the air, and the sky, were peopled by them; every crumbling and desolate cabin on the sterile moor or common was tenanted by a witch; while the margins of our beautiful loughs, the bosoms of our silent and sequestered glens, the recesses of our romantic mountain valleys, the echoing walls of every mouldering edifice, and the mystic circle of each rude hill-fort, were the chosen habitations of unearthly beings.