“There they are!” cried she, pointing to the group, who, with a delicacy of sentiment that might have graced the most refined class, sat apart, never venturing by a look to obtrude upon the confidence of the others,--“there they are; and if the world was like them, life would n't have many crosses!” Mary rose, and drew nigh the old man, who stood up respectfully to receive her. “He does n't know much English, Miss Mary,” whispered Joan in her ear. “Nor am I well skilled in Irish,” said Mary, smiling; “but I 'll do my best to thank him.” However imperfectly she spoke the native tongue, the words seemed to act like a charm on those who heard them; and as, young and old, they gathered around her, their eager looks and delighted faces beamed with a triumphant joy. They had learned from the boatmen that it was the young princess--as in the language of the people she was called--was before them, and their pride and happiness knew no bounds. Oh, if courtiers could feel one tithe of the personal devotion to the sovereign that did these poor peasants to her they regarded as their chief, what an atmosphere of chivalry would breathe within the palace of royalty! There was nothing they would not have done or dared at her bidding; and as she crossed their threshold, and sat down beside their hearth, the tears of joy that rose to every eye showed that this was an event to be treasured till memory could retain no more! If Mary did not speak the native dialect fluently, there was a grace and a charm about the turn of the expressions she used that never failed to delight those who heard her. That imaginative thread that runs through the woof of Irish nature in every rank and condition of life--more conspicuous, probably, in the very humblest--imparted an intense pleasure to hearing and listening to her; and she, on her side, roused and stimulated by the adventurous character of the incident, the strange wild spot, the simple people, their isolation and their innocence, spoke with a warmth and an enthusiasm that were perfectly captivating. She had seen much of the peasantry,--known them in the most unfrequented tracts, remote from all their fellow-men,--in far-away glens, by dreary mountains, where no footpaths led; but anything so purely simple and unsophisticated as these poor people she had never met with. The sons had been--and that rarely, too--on the mainland, but the children and their mothers had never left the Brannocks; they had never beheld a tree, nor even a flower, save the wild crocus on their native rock. With what eager delight, then, did they hear Mary describe the gardens of the castle,--pictures that glowed with all the gorgeous colors of a fairy tale. “You shall all come and see me, some of these days. I'll send you a messenger, to say the time,” said Mary; “and I'll promise that what you 'll witness will be far above my description of it!”