graces, which assist him in his peregrinations and his duties in the European capitals. These were latent in him when he came to marry a charming girl in the daughter of Ethan Allen Hitchcock of St. Louis, who assisted in his most excellent development on the social side. And, all in all, one might say, in a form of expression that is sung in chorus at some American gatherings, that Admiral Sims is all right, that so far as nations and governments can discover at a period when their perspicacity is most

Chambers's Journal.

intense and their standard most exacting, there is nothing at all the matter with Admiral Sims. We think of this trim figure striding along Whitehall and Pall Mall, and some of us think of it again as a strange emotion twitches at the heart on first observing an American warship in our British waters, Old Glory at her masthead. You must see this thing to know the emotion; it is one of the rare delights of man, knowing the best of the world is with him as he goes fighting

on.

Henry Leach.

CHAPTER IX.

THE RETURNED TRAVELER. The gusts rose and fell and died away. Sometimes it blew hard for a short time: then there was a calm interval. Again came the sharp pattering rain on the windows as Madam and Miss Sweeney sat at dinner. Then there was a booming sound-distant thunder or the wind clapping its wings in the confined places between the hills.

"The storm has set in early," said Madam. "Early enough to give them warning. They will not attempt to cross tonight. They will be very comfortable with Father O'Brien. They know the ways of the Sound. The sea will be running like a mill-race by this time, and it's not easy to make our wretched harbor in weather like this."

She consented to go to bed early. There would probably be early arrivals in the morning. Sir Anthony and John would come hurrying home lest the storm of the night should have frightened her. Monica Howard was coming tomorrow. Madam had a joyful excitement in her face when

she talked of Monica Howard's coming. "I guess," Octavia said to herself, a little grimly, "this Monica girl's come to push me from my stool."

The next speech of Madam's brought her some reassurance.

"Monica looks sympathetic always. Her eyes are wonderfully expressive, but she looks just the same when she is considering the retrimming of a hat as when she is listening to poetry. She thinks John's poetry is lovely, but she knows nothing about it. She has a very simple taste. Longfellow and Miss Proctor are, I believe, her favorite poets; and very often, I am sure, she cannot make head or tail of what John's is about."

Octavia felt restored to her selfrespect.

"I just adore those old families," she said. "They look so beautiful, and they don't give you any trouble with brains. They're still in the Middle Ages."

She intercepted Mary Ellen on her way to Madam's room. The nurse wore a terrified look, and had a way as though she dragged her feet, too weary to lift them.

"I'm afraid to face the Madam," she said, "lest she'd read bad news in my face. They're not in, God help us all, and no word of them."

"He will help us. But if you're not sure of yourself, you keep away. I'll do what she needs. I should just love to wait on her for one night."

"She's not frightened? They were wonderin' below-stairs that she ate her dinner. Considine said she ate her little bird as though she loved it. It's not like her: she's so soon frightened. I often thought in the wild days when Sir Anthony was home late and I lookin' at her that I'd see the heart lep from her side."

Miss Sweeney glanced back in the direction of the room where she had left Madam at her prie-dieu.

"Mary Ellen," she said, "I've told a lie!"

"You have, Miss?" Mary Ellen returned, without any condemnation in her voice. "Sure you have to sometimes. I wouldn't be callin' it such hard names.'

"I told her that Sir Anthony said they'd stay the night with Father O'Brien if the weather threatened."

"It'll never be brought up agin you. Sometimes a lie's better nor a truth. But I'm afeard o' what the night'll bring. If it was to be like Miss Cecilia, she couldn't bear it. The husband and the son. There's many a wan in the village has lost that same. Didn't my own sister lose five sons an' the husband? An' the old harbor's no good for the boats to come in."

"She thinks the household has gone to bed. Let some one stay up and keep fires going, and plenty of hot water in case of need."

"There won't be wan in Clew Castle, nor in Cloughaneely, unless it might be the babies, that'll sleep tonight. There's a message come from the village that the Sound is roaring.

That's always a bad sign of a storm,

so it is."

"I am going to read her to leep. Keep the house as quiet as you can." "You'll hear no noise from the house in Madam's room. It looks into the wood. She took that room after Miss Cecilia went. It was her room."

"If I let you come to Madam will you control your feelings or the expression of them?" Miss Sweeney asked. Her American accent was slight, but she gave the words more vivacity than an Englishwoman would have done. "I don't want to tell any more lies. It's not a thing I adore doing as a rule, but if you can't keep things from her I'll have to say you're not well, that you're downright sick, if you like, and can't come."

"I can be grumpy," Mary Ellen said. ""Twouldn't be the first time. I've often enough to make me grumpy, and it disturbs Madam. When it takes me that way I haven't a word."

"Very well, then," Miss Sweeney said. "Be grumpy, as you call it. I'd have no occasion to pretend to a hump myself this minute. If you feel it getting too much for you, I'll be outside the door. Cough three times, if you want me."

She waited, sitting in one of the sharply-pointed windows of the corridor. The night was very dark outside, but the wind seemed to have dropped. Now and again light leaped above the horizon-not broad sheet lightning, but something that had a center of fire, that sprang when the light came.

"You're to go in to Madam," said Mary Ellen, coming out into the corridor. "I've only to leave her her glass of milk and biscuits for the night. I don't know how I got through it. She thought it was grumps. I can be a terrible cross ould woman. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Mary Ellen has the toothache," said

Octavia sat down by Madam's bed. On a prie-dieu beside it lay a crucifix, a New Testament, and "The Imitation of Christ." Round the walls hung the portraits of Madam's children, Cecilia in the midst, in her first Communion frock, her hands folded on a prayer-book, her small, pale, demure profile looking downward between the curtains of the veil.

"You shall read me my chapter," said Madam. "Tonight it is the 'Imitation.' I keep the New Testament for the morning when I awaken. You will find the chapter by the marker."

Already Madam's voice was sleepy. Octavia read aloud the chapter which was indicated by the marker, an oldfashioned thing of perforated card, worked by a child in red silk crossstitch with the inscription "Gloria in Excelsis"; it was signed at the foot "C. McG." The chapter was "Of the Royal Way of the Holy Cross."

Octavia read it with deep feeling, thinking of the woman before her, who had trodden that royal way and might have to tread it again. She wondered that she could control her leaping and terrified pulses, but as she read the majesty of the words, the high unearthly atmosphere of the thoughts, controlled and quietened her. They seemed to set her and Madam, for whom she had conceived a tender affection, above the seas and the winds.

When she had finished she took up the New Testament and read the chapter in which Christ came to His disciples walking on the water. She could hardly have told why she selected that. It might indeed have seemed to Madam an ominous thing to do at such a moment.

But Madam was not alarmed. She echoed the closing words of the chapter. "Fear not, little flock."

"Thank God," she said, "the storm has died down. I am very glad they said they would stay with Father O'Brien tonight. I hope there will not be any more sickness on the Islands. There was one case a year ago, but it was quickly isolated. The man recovered, and there was no more trouble. Thank you very much, my dear, forreading to me tonight. Now I shall go to sleep."

Octavia bent and kissed the delicate little face among its pillows; and Madam, murmuring sleepily that the boat would be in early in the morning, closed her eyes.

Most of the servants remained up in Clew Castle that night. The early hours of the night were very still and sultry. The sky was pitchy-dark, except for the continued flickering of the lightning on the horizon which revealed the outlines of the country for a second before the darkness had enveloped everything once more.

It was about midnight when the storm really broke. The thunderstorm had come on, and with it lashing hail and a screaming of wind. The leashed furies were let loose. The thunder tore and crackled above the house. The lightning swung in golden chains from the sky to the earth.

"It will wear itself out," Mary Ellen whispered in Octavia's ear: Octavia was sitting in the corridor outside Madam's door, watching the green baize outer door anxiously. Would the storm awaken her? She had been

listening at the door. There was not a sound within. Mary Ellen had brought an easy-chair to the corridor for Octavia, who had been sitting on the window-seat watching the great spectacle outside.

"You'd better send them all to bed," Octavia said. "There is no use in the whole household being up." "Is it to sleep through this?" Mary Ellen asked in amazement. "Sure there isn't wan in the house would sleep through it. They're brewin' tay in the kitchen an' handin' it round, an' wan's batin' out th' other in tellin' the worst churchyard stories ever you heard. I wasn't in the mind for it tonight, somehow."

Miss Sweeney took Mary Ellen's hard hand into her own, beautifully soft and white.

"I expect they did stay on the Islands after all," she said. "There'd have been news before now if they'd put out."

"Not if the boat were stove in or overturned. They might be tossin' about there a long time before they were carried up an' flung on the beach. That's the way most of them comes home-washed up to their own little doors they do be. There was Susy Canavan, God help her, that heard a thuddin' at the door in a high tide and thought the boat had got loose, and when she ran to open the door the wave was running out to say after floodin' the whole little place, and there was Mick up against the door, and them not married six months."

The whisper had scarcely ceased when the green baize door was pushed back and Madam came out in her white night-gown.

"There is some one knocking at the hall door," she said: "and no one seems to hear. Why are you all up at this hour? and why is the house still lit up?"

""Tis the storm," said Mary Ellen. LIVING AGE, VOL. VIII, No. 414.

"You wouldn't expect us to be sleepin' through the like o' that!"

"Some poor travelers are caught in the dreadful storm," said Madam. "Go and let them in. I would not shut a dog out on such a night."

The thunder tore the sky to shreds above the house and the blue lightning flashed.

is

"It is an awful storm," said Madam. "Open the door for whoever knocking."

"Go back to bed, and we will see who is knocking," Octavia said, while Mary Ellen went away muttering that she could hear no knocking at the door, and God help them all if there was a knocking, for it would be the dead come home, and that would be a bad day for Clew. Then suddenly Octavia heard the sound of the heavy knocker of the hall door. Madam was right. She had finer hearing than theirs.

"Go and see who it is," cried Madam, pushing her, "and bring me word. Some traveler is out of his road. I pray God that no one dear to us be under the night in such a storm."

Octavia went without a word. The knocking became more urgent as she went down the stairs. In the hall she found Mary Ellen taking down the bars of the door. The servants had heard nothing, but John's old Irish terrier, Mac, who was almost blind, was flinging himself against the door, scratching at its nail-studded strength with fierce impatience.

As Octavia reached the door the bars fell.

"God help us all if there's bad news," Mary Ellen said, falling back and looking with terrified eyes at the door. "I'm afeard of what may come in, so I am. Miss, dear, will you open the door?"

"I don't take much stock in superstition," said Octavia, more bravely than she felt.

She took the heavy key and turned

it. As she did so Mary Ellen cried out. Madam was coming down the flight of stairs to the hall. She was standing, her hand pressed against her side.

"For the love of God, go back, ma'am, till we find out what's at the door," Mary Ellen cried, running to her mistress and putting an arm about her.

Madam uttered a sharp cry.

"It is only some poor traveler," she said; "you should not frighten me, Mary Ellen. My heart is not very strong."

The door flew open and let in the wind and the rain and a blue flare of lightning. The lamps in the hall blew out. Some one had come in with the storm and closed the door behind him. For a second they were in pitchy darkness. But it was no stranger who came, for Mac was fawning on him and barking in wild delight.

Octavia ran to the drawing-room door and opened it, letting out a shaft of light into the darkness. She was aware of Madam peering into the darkness, of Mary Ellen crouched down on the floor, her apron flung over her head.

"Come to the light! Come to the light!" Octavia said, seizing on the stranger, who was wet as a waterdog, and dragging him into the light. "Let her see who you are. Joy doesn't kill." She was aware of a handsome, sunburnt face under the dripping hat-brim.

Madam came out of her stupor and pushing Mary Ellen to one side, turned fearfully towards the stranger. "Speak to her," Octavia cried, and pushed the stranger Madam's way. "My dearest mother," he said: "I have come home."

"It is Tony," cried Madam: "it is Tony," and flung herself upon the tall stranger.

Mary Ellen took the apron from over her head, and uttered a shriek of

joy. She, too, must have Master Tony's hand to fondle. Was he not her own boy? He stooped and kissed the nurse.

"You're younger than ever, Mary Ellen," he said, as though his coming home was that of the schoolboy of ten years ago.

Octavia went to the bell and rang it furiously. The servants came rushing up the stairs.

"Mr. Tony has come home," she said. "Hustle round and get him some food. The wind has extinguished the lamps. Light them again, and see that a fire is kindled. The driver will need food as well."

Tony McGrady came to the drawingroom door, his mother clinging to him.

"There's a car-driver from Ennis outside," he said, "and he's like a drowned rat. 'Twas only for the sport of the thing he took me. He'll want food and lodging for the night. will his horse. Hello, Considine. Get me out of my wet things. What a night! It's good to get into shelter."

So

All was cheerful excitement and bustle. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that Sir Anthony and John had not returned, except Mary Ellen, and she stopped to say on her way to prepare Master Tony a hot bath

"Sure, she'll have him to comfort her if anything's gone wrong, Miss."

Miss Sweeney, seeing she was no longer required, slipped away to her own room, where she bolted the door before she sat down and hid her face in her hands.

"I consider," she said to herself, "that if anything's gone wrong with John McGrady, there'll be a lot of comfort needed for other people as well."

CHAPTER X. YOUNG TERENCE.

Sir Anthony came back at breakfast-time the next morning. The storm