Grace to awake; and dressing rapidly, and drawing back the window-blinds, she saw, for the first time, the glorious Atlantic in all its billowy boundlessness before her: its long and heavy waves breaking in thunder against the cliff on which the house stood. Its music had lulled her to sleep - had mingled in her dreams; and she now beheld its wild surf and spray with an enthusiasm she could scarce control.

Her apartment was furnished not expensively; but the hand of taste was there. Over the mantelpiece was a well-painted oil picture of a young naval officer, leaning on a gun; and on the chimney-slab was an envelope, addressed To Captain M. Ashley, R.N., Commanding Coast-Guard,” &c., &c.

Thus accidentally Grace ascertained the profession of her host. She had heard the previous day from Miss Beaufoy—a long and agreeable letter, breathing the kindest love; and her thoughts were full of her absent friend, and the vicarage, and Earlsdale; and, by some unaccountable freak of imagination, she could not help associating the house she was now in with Darkbrothers and its mistress; for the tones of Mrs. Ashley's voice had startled her last night, and this picture now before her was so like the portrait of Flora Beaufoy. But this, thought Grace, is all pure fancy or folly; and so she finished dressing, and ran down to meet Mr. O'Donel, whom she saw standing on the cliff under her window.

At breakfast, Mrs. and Miss Ashley received our travellers with great courtesy. The former had the remains of much beauty, but she seemed broken and changed by sorrow or sickness; the latter was a handsome, graceful girl, with a rich olive complexion; and both ladies, in their contour of feature, their general style, and above all, the tones of their voice, incessantly reminded Grace of Miss Beaufoy.

Mrs. Ashley apologised for the absence of her son he was along the coast, on duty, in his cutter; and then directing her conversation to Mr. O'Donel, she spoke of many of his tenants, whose cottages she had visited in her walks. She was a very elegant woman, but reserved and grave, and seemed more bent on being courteous than kind. Miss Ashley scarcely spoke. Once Grace, when her father was discussing scenery, asked her,

"had she ever been in Wales, or seen Snowdon?"

She coldly replied, "I have heard much of Welsh landscape, but I know more of Switzerland; we were brought up and educated at Lausanne."

After breakfast, the travellers took a grateful leave of their entertainers, and proceeded to the hotel, where Mr. O'Donel had engaged rooms for a week.

He quite felt with Grace about the likeness of the Ashley ladies to Miss Beaufoy. Their landlady was loud in their praise. She said that they were new comers; that they were English people, pious, and kind to the poor, and a blessing to all around them. Captain Ashley was a fine young man, who had seen some service, and had been severely wounded at N

Mr. O'Donel determined to remain until he saw him. Meanwhile, Grace and he spent whole days rambling over the giant cliffs which belt, as with an iron baldric, this grand coast.

The weather was perfect, and the great "ocean slumbered like a weaned child;" and Mr. O'Donel, taking advantage of the calm, determined to visit the picturesque Island of Tory, which lay, like a rock-embattled castle, sleeping in the sea about ten miles from the mainland.

"It is a rough place, Grace," he said, "and a rougher passage to it, so I shall not take you; but I shall go in the yawl of Captain Ashley's sloop, which crosses in the morning, too early for young cragswomen like you to be astir. The men have asked me to sail with them; and I shall enjoy the trip, which will remind me of happy yachting days, and I shall be home for a late dinner with you."

They parted for the night, and next day Grace spent in the hotel, working and writing by turns. She had received a note two days before from Miss Ashley, apologising for not seeing her, but saying that her mother had been unwell.

Mr. O'Donel did not return to dinner, and Grace passed an anxious night. True, the sea was smooth, and the yawl had not come back; no doubt he was in the island, and safe.

Next morning Miss Ashley walked in after breakfast. Her mother was better; and Grace, who was wretched about her absent father, put on her shawl and bonnet, and returned with

Miss Ashley towards the latter's home. Perhaps she would have questioned her if she was any relation of Miss Beaufoy's; but now Grace's whole mind was absorbed in her father, and her heart went with her eyes across the heaving mass of water, glittering like silver in the morning light, which expanded between her and the peaks and fantastically-shaped cliffs of Tory.

It was a great fishing season, and hundreds of boats were pushing off the shore, probably not to be home till late at night. The ladies sat down at the cottage window, looking out on the sea.

"I cannot imagine why the yawl did not return last evening," said Miss Ashley; she was manned by three of my brother's people, all experienced seamen; so Miss O'Donel you need not be anxious."

She spoke kindly, and Grace thanked her with a smile; and they sat on together in silence, till Miss Ashley said

"I see something afloat now between this and Torry. It might be the yawl, or some other boat. Help me, Miss O'Donel, to point this large telescope; and now look through and tell me what you see."

After some difliculty, Grace covered the floating object with the lens of the glass.

"Alas!" she said, it is not a boat, and yet there are, I think, human beings moving in it. It seems to be a large square basket, or creel, yet it floats like a water hen, and as lightly, and is advancing rapidly."

"Oh!" said Miss Ashley, "it is a curragh, the ancient boat of the country, and you may depend on it there is a message being conveyed to you from your father in it. Let us go out upon the cliff and watch its arrival."

In half an hour, the light caique, made of branches of trees for ribs, interlaced and tied with twigs, and thick canvas, well tarred and waterproof, drawn over all, ran up on the beech, almost at the young ladies' feet, and two men, rough islanders, jumped out, and the elder presented a note to Miss O'Donel, asking her was she not the English clergyman's daughter. The note ran thus:

"DEAREST GRACE, -I have had a fall, and am slightly bruised. It is nothing; still I cannot return to-day. Do not be uneasy. The yawl was hurt coming into port against the fluke of an anchor, which will detain us all. Ever your loving father, "H. O'D."

Grace read this note with a compressed lip and very pale face. She handed it to Miss Ashley, saying

"I shall go to him myself."

She then questioned the old sailor further. He told her that the English gentleman's foot had slipped in climbing a rock to seek, he believed, for "yerbs," and that he had fallen a "good piece down," and when he saw him, he was lying for dead, and his face covered with blood.

Once again Grace waxed deadly pale, and her lips quivered; then her countenance cleared, as if she had found relief in some hidden influence, or resolve, and addressing the old sailor, she inquired

"When do you return to Tory?"
The man replied-

"At two o'clock, when the tide ebbs."

"Will you take me with you?" "Lord, Miss, we have no boat, 'tis but an old curragh!"

"Will your vessel hold three?" "Ay, that she will, and more besides, readily."

"Do you expect to get there before evening, and safely?"

"Surely, Miss," said the man, "with God's help; from the most ancient days no one ever heard tell of a curragh foundering in the Sound of Tory. A man-of-war might go down easy enough, but our little curraghs is like the gannets from Hornhead, they rise to the foam like a piece of cork."

"Then I will go with with you," said Grace.

"You could not, Miss," answered the man; "the spray would be over you a hundred times, and there will be a squall of wind before sundownyou would die of cold and fright."

Grace faintly smiled, and said

"I am not afraid, nor shall I be so; and I am strong and healthy. Look, my friend, I will go to my father

this day, if it were blowing a tempest. Here is a purse full of gold; if you will not take me, I can and will buy the services of some other kind seaman, who will not refuse a daughter the means of going to her sick father."

"Lord bless you, Miss," cried the man, "I only refused you because I was afeard for you in crossing the Sound. I will take you with all my heart, but one farthing of your guineagold Dan Whoriskey will never receive. I and mine are well known to young Captain Ashley as old Tory Soundsmen; and with the stout heart you seem to have, and the sweet smile on your lips this minute, sure the curragh must have good luck that carries an angel in it."

Miss Ashley now joined Grace, and in vain strove to change her purpose, and deter her from the peril. She said

"I know these two Whoriskeys. They are decent, sober men, and Marten, my brother, thinks them inimitable seamen. Still, think of a pull of three hours in such a sea,"

But to this and many such argu ments Grace only answered with a quiet "I must see my father. I will go to him."

66

Calm, resolved, unmoveable, a smile on her lip, and a tear every moment gathering under the long lashes of her eyes, Miss Ashley thought she had never seen anyone so attractive and so devoted before. All was now ready. A little leather carpet-bag was flung into the curragh, containing a change of garments for poor Grace. The two Whoriskeys launched their craft, into which Grace jumped with no emotion of fear in her heart, beyond the dread of finding her father ill or hurt; and the men were going to bend to their oars when Captain Ashley's coxswain, who had heard of the accident to his yawl, volunteered to go; and Miss Ashley whispered Grace, that Stedman was a man of great judgment and coolness, and an old man-of-war's mate with her brother. Then waving her handkerchief she bid her adieu, with a face expressive of the deepest sympathy and inte

rest.

I am not sailor enough to describe the voyage. To Grace the curragh appeared a mere eggshell as to the strength of its fabric; but side by side with the cutter's coxswain, whose leathern, honest features betrayed no

thing but imperturbable repose, she sat erect and pale, with her eye fixed on the distant island, and her lips compressed and motionless, while the curragh went whirling down one high bank of blue water, and surging up the other; then hanging for a second, as if dizzy, on the crest of the wave, before once more it rushed spinningly down into the abyss of the giant was ters, which war and welter in the bed of the great Atlantic. Presently one of the oarsmen cried out

"Now, Miss, we are on the bar, where we have always a bit of a short ugly sea. Sit fast and shut your eyes; and now pull away. Mr. Stedman, take that short oar. You can steer a curragh. Keep her head against the breakers. Pull away, my hearty! O dear, Miss, you are all wet! Pull away! Turn your face, God bless you, from the whip of the wave. three minutes more we shall have passed this angry bit of sea, and get to our own pleasant, darling, long waves again. Pull away one, two, three, four. -now a strong one, and hurrah, the bar is passed!"

In

Blinded, stunned, half-drowned with the lash of the wave, Grace now lifted her head, as the little curragh spun up and down the long valleying swells of the ocean. Her companion sat by her side, silent as a statue, though at times steering, and again baling out the curragh with a leathern bucket. Presently he spoke with a voice as composed as if he were by his own fireside.

we

"Dan," addressing the elder oarsman, "Dan, there is an ugly patch of cloud getting up far behind us; shall have a squall of it. Pull hard, my man; or come here and steer, and I will take your oar. We must try

and outrun it if we can."

So saying, he exchanged seats with the old man, and seizing the oar, he threw the curragh into a much greater speed than she had hitherto displayed. And now Grace's heart beat high, for the sea birds from the Tory Cliffs were circling the boat, and they had not more than two miles to reach the island. Hark! a rushing, splashing sound all round the curragh, and a huge, black shoal of porpoises shot by.

Oh, dear man," cried the superstitious Dan, "we are sure to catch the squall now, with them ugly say naygurs."

"Look out to windward!" cried the younger oarsman, who sat in the bow; "if there isn't Captain Ashley and the Sea Hawk running like fire before the wind. They are making for Tory, and will beat us yet. See how the Captain is hauling down his jib, and reefing his mainsail! We shall have the gale now to break on us in a jiffey.”

A large, yacht-rigged sloop was now clearly visible far on the left, flying through the foam, with a black bank of cloud behind its white sail. The scene was exciting and beautiful, had Grace's mind, unburthened of its care, been able to enjoy it.

"Now, dear Miss, for God's sake don't be afeart, for here is the scud coming over the sea. Sit low down in the boat, and don't stir; and Mr. Stedman, alannah, come here again and steer, and give me the oar, for I am used to it; and if you ever piloted a vessel, do your best now with the little curragh, for I would wager a gould guinea that your own master is looking at you now through his glass from the cutter's stern-rails. said the old man, as a wave struck him drenchingly on the face, “there is more of that sort coming."

Ough!"

And the next moment the sea was raging and roaring mountains high around them and behind them.

Grace could never describe in detail what occurred till she landed. She recollects sitting quietly, while the curragh seemed to be all but torn out of the water by the fierce wind. She recollects the coxswain's steady face, seen dimly through the spray, and her drawing comfort therefrom; the wild, eager countenances of the Irish oarsmen ; the jerks of the oars in their rullocks; the dash, and shock, and scattering whirl of the breaking wave; the halloo of the rowers at every stroke, encouraging each other in their conflict with the raging element; and the convulsive straining and creaking of the frail curragh, which seemed about to sever and go to pieces every minute. She recollected lifting her face over the gunwale once, and drawing it back again, all dizzy and sick at the vision of the black caverns of water, which yawned like deep graves around her. Then settling her mind to prayer, till a sweet and sustaining calm came over her, and she lifted her face once more bravely up into the tempest, and

looked out upon the war of waters, and smiled upon their anger. Then she felt she had great peace, and assurance that all would come right, and every fear fled away. And so it came to pass that, in about five minutes, the gallant little curragh was spinning round the black base of a sheltering cliff, and was in smooth water, and presently grounded in soft, white sand, and the men drew her up on the beach, Dan Whorisky shaking Grace's hand most vehemently, and shouting"It's with Nelson, Miss, you ought to have sailed," and a number of wild women, crowding round her, and crying, and kissing her; and all was noise, confusion, congratulation, and happiness, for side by side with a young naval officer she saw her father.

He had been but slightly hurt, his hand much bruised, but the pain of the fall caused him to faint, and his nose had gushed out blood. In this state Whorisky saw him, and his report was according to the impression he received.

That night Grace slept in her father's room, a long, unbroken sleep,dreamless, because so deep-a sleep of youth, and health, and innocence-and when she awaked she felt perfectly refreshed. The morn was one of cloudless beauty, and breakfast was scarcely finished when Captain Ashley came in to invite Mr. and Miss O'Donel to accompany him in his cutter, which was to sail at noon for the mainland. He seemed astonished at Grace looking so well and fresh after her perilous voyage.

"The islanders here," said he, "are wild about you. Old Whorisky, the skipper of that sea-basket of a thing you

had the courage to sail in, states, that when the squall struck the cur ragh he was in despair, and was half inclined to drop his oar and give up, but a smile from you he declares put such strength into his arms, and such courage into him, that he would sooner have died in the stern-sheets than given in while you were there. And my sober English coxswain, who is the most taciturn of men, and does not generally speak twenty words in the day, has never ceased descanting on your steadiness, courage, and presence of mind all the morning."

As Captain Ashley spoke, the tones of his voice, the glance of the eye, and the play of his mouth, all reminded Grace most forcibly of Miss Beaufoy.

At two o'clock they went on board the Sea Hawk, and slowly beat out to windward across the sound. They found Ashley an extremely well-educated man, with a fine person, and fascinating manners. He was a thorough sailor, manly and straightforward, and so frank, that Grace had good hopes he would solve her mystery during the voyage. They all stood on the cutter's deck, and the sublime Donegal Highlands were ranged before them.

"You should love these hills," said Ashley to the young lady, "for the people here have assured me that the whole territory was swayed by your forefathers."

"Yes," said Mr. O'Donel, "I believe we have some claim to the chieftainship of the family. We were petty princes for a few centuries, and afterwards very famous rebels;' but I confess my family pride gives me but little care or trouble; and if I have any exalted spot in my heart concerning this old race, it is because the good St. Columbkill was of the house of O'Donel, and was born among the mountains which now stretch before us, and loved and lived, too, in this very Isle of Tory. He was a true Christian, living when the Irish Church was pure, and unconnected with Rome or her usages."

Ashley listened with interest.

"I have seen," he said, "the saint's birthplace; it is by the beautiful Lake of Gartan, about twelve miles from this. I," he added, have neither prince nor saint in the catalogue of my ancestry. Welsh nobles in abundance, for my father's original name was Mostyn, till he changed it for a fortune, which proved a misfortune, for he was ruined by mining. My mother's family indeed can boast of a Crusader, and a collar of silver, bestowed by Cœur de Lion's hand; but they have all passed away, and I suppose the last of the name had the relic put into her coffin, for I am told her avarice was only to be equalled by her penury."

The young man spoke this, but not bitterly, and I need not say was heard anxiously by his companions. Grace pressed her father's arm, and looked down; then Mr. O'Donel said

"May I ask you, Captain Ashley, was the aunt you speak of called Jane Beaufoy?"

The young man started, coloured, and said

"Certainly sir."

"Then, Captain Ashley, she is not dead, nor is she now what you describe her; she is alive and well, and is my daughter's dearest friend; and I do not think there is anything on earth she more ardently desires than to see and to know her relatives, and to share with them the affections of her most noble and generous heart."

"You astonish me," said Ashley, "as well as rejoice me; we heard she had died of a fever in Warwickshire. How glad will my dear mother be, for I believe she never ceased to love her, though it was not reciprocated by Aunt Jane."

The young sailor would have asked many more questions; and Grace, delighted, charmed, and exhilarated to the highest degree, would have gladly taken up her parable, and talked of Miss Beaufoy for hours, but they were now approaching the shore, and Ashley had to give directions to the helmsman for bringing the Sea Hawk into her nest, as he called her anchorage. He then courteously entreated his two companions to accompany him home.

On the cliff they were met by Mrs. and Miss Ashley; and the former, rapidly advancing, said

"Even before I welcome you, dear Marten, I must embrace and thank God again, and again, for this young lady."

"Oh, sir," said she, turning to Mr. O'Donel, "what a night of suspense we have passed; and oh, sir, what a daughter God has given you.”

I pass over the astonishment with which Mrs. Ashley received the tidings of her sister being alive and well, and how diligently that sister had sought her, though in vain, owing to her foreign residence and change of name; and how she was greatly overcome when she was told of all the love, hospitality, and prosperity that awaited her under the roof of Darkbrothers; for she had had bitter trials, and this mercy was all the brighter. Hour after hour Grace passed in telling of the many excellencies of Jane Beaufoy. I could not pretend to do justice to the eloquent letter she penned to the old lady, or the delighted, happy, thankful answer she received, full of vivacity, and affection, and joy. The postcript ran thus