Bits of Blarney. R. Shelton Mackenzie

a kind, sweet smile. Every morning of my life, I make a promise to my heart that I will never again come here to look upon that smile, far too sweet and too kind for such as me, and yet my steps turn towards you before the day is done. But it's all of no use. I must quit the place altogether. I will go for a soldier, and if I am killed in battle, as I hope I may be, they will find your name, Mary, written on my heart."

      To a maid who loved as well as Mary Mahony did, there was a touching pathos in the simple earnestness of this confession;--aye, and eloquence, too, for surely truth is the living spirit of eloquence. How long she might have been inclined to play the coquette I cannot resolve, but the idea of her lover's leaving her put all finesse to flight, and she said, in a low tone, which yet found an echo, and made a memory in his heart: "Remmy! dear Remmy, you must not leave me. If you go, my heart goes with you, for I like you, poor as you are, better than the richest lord in the land, with his own weight of gold and jewels on his back."

      What more she might have said puzzles conjecture--for these welcome words were scarcely spoken, when all further speech was arrested by an ardent kiss from Remmy. Oh! the first, fond kiss of mutual love! what is there of earth with so much of the soft and gentle balm of heaven?

      There they stood, by the ruins of that old castle, the world all forgot. There they whispered, each to each, that deep passion with which they had so long been heart-full. The maiden had gentle sighs and pleasant tears--but these last, Remmy gallantly kissed away. Very wrong, no doubt, for her to have permitted him to do so, and, in truth, she sometimes exhibited a shadow of resistance. There was, in sooth,