In a few minutes, however, I perceived her return, leaning on the arm of the Father Director. You cannot conceive what a festival of the feelings my few days absence had purchased me. Oh! he knows nothing of the doctrine of enjoyment, who does not purchase his pleasure at the expense of temporary restraint. The good priest, who still retains something of the etiquette of his foreign education, embraced me _a la Française_. Glorvina, however, who _malhereusement_, was not reared in France, only offered me her _hand_, which I had not the courage to raise to my unworthy lip, although the cordial _cead mille a falta_ of her country revelled in her shining eyes, and and her effulgent countenance was lit up with an unusual blaze of animation. When we reached the castle the Prince sent for me to his room, and told me, as he pressed my hand, that “his heart warmed at my sight.” In short, my return seems to have produced a carnival in the whole family. You who know, that notwithstanding my late vitiated life, the simple pleasures of the heart were never dead to mine, may guess how highly gratifying to my feelings is this interest, which, independent of all adventitious circumstances of rank and fortune, I have awakened in the bosoms of these cordial, ingenuous beings. The late insufferable reserve of Glorvina has given way to the most bewitching (I had almost said _tender_) softness of manner. As I descended from paying my visit to the Prince, I found her and the priest in the hall. “We are waiting for you,” said she--“there is no resisting the fineness of the evening.” And as we left the door, she pointed towards the west and added-- “See-- “The weary sun hath made a golden set, And by yon ruddy brightness of the clouds, Gives tokens of a goodly day to-morrow.” “O! apropos, Mr. Mortimer, you are returned in most excellent time--for to-morrow is the _first of May_.” “And is the arrival of a guest,” said I, “on the _eve_ of that day a favourable omen?” “The arrival of such a guest,” said she, “must be at least ominous of happiness. But the first of May is our great national festival; and you, who love to trace modern customs to ancient origins, will perhaps feel some curiosity and interest to behold some of the rites of our heathen superstitions still lingering among our present ceremonies.” “What then,” said I, “have you, like the Greeks, the festivals of the spring among you?” “It is certain,” said the priest, “that the ancient Irish sacrificed on the _first of May to Beal_, or the _Sun_; and that day, even at this period, is called _Beal_.” “By this idolatry to the god of Light and Song,” said I, “one would almost suppose that Apollo was the tutelar deity of your island.”