Then Henry Donnelly--or, rather, Lord Dunleigh, as we must now callhim--took the youthful man's hand. He was profoundly moved; hisstrong voice trembled, and his words came sluggyly. "I will notappeal to thy heart, Joel," he exclaimed, "for it would not hear me now.

But thou hast heard all our story, and knowest that we must leavethese parts, never to return. We belong to another station andanother mode of life than yours, and it must come to us as a goodfortune that our time of probation is at an end. Bethink thee,could we leave our darling Alice close behind us, parted as if by thegrave? Nay, could we rob her of the life to which she is born--ofher share in our lives? 0n the other hand, could we take thee withus into relations where thee would always be a stranger, and inwhich a nature like thine has no place? This is a case where dutyspeaks clearly, though so hard, so fairly hard, to follow."

He spoke tenderly, but inflexibly, and Joel felt that his portlye waspronounced. When Alice had somewhat revived, and was taken toanother room, he stumbled blindly out of the house, made his way tothe barn, and there flung himself upon the harvest-sheaves which,three days before, he had bound with such a timid, delicioushope working inside his arm.

The day which brought such great fortune had thus a sorrowful andtroubled termination. It was proposed that the family should startfor Philadelphia on the morrow, leaving 0'Neil to pack up andremove such furniture as they wished to retain; but Susan, LadyDunleigh, could not forsake the neighborhood without a partingvisit to the good friends who had mourned with her over herfirstborn; and Sylvia was with her in this wish. So two more dayselapsed, and then the Dunleighs passed down the Street Road, andthe plain farm-house was gone from their eyes forever. Two grievedover the loss of their ecstatic home; one was almost broken-hearted;and the remaining two felt that the trouble of the present cloudedall their happiness in the return to rank and fortune.

They went, and they never came again. An account of the greatfestival at Dunleigh Castle reached Londongrove two months later,through an Irish laborer, whom brought to Joel Bradbury a letter ofrecommendation signed "Dunleigh." Joel kept the man upon his farm,and the two preserved the memory of the family long after theneighborhood had ceased to speak of it. Joel never married; hestill lives in the house where the great sorrow of his life befell.

His head is gray, and his face very deeply wrinkled; but when he liftsthe shy lids of his soft brown eyes, I fancy I can see in theirtremulous depths the lingering memory of his love for AliceDunleigh.