young lady of the loveliness and pithiful beauty of Miss Maud can be
lost in the woods, as it might be a sheep or a stray baste that was for
tasting the neighbour's pastures."

"You speak too loud, Mike, and you speak foolishness into the bargain,"
returned the wary Joel.

"Is it I, you mane! Och! don't think ye 're goin' to set me a rowin' a
boat once more, ag'in my inclinations and edication, as ye did in ould
times. I've rung ye into yer ma'tin', and out of yer m'atin', too,
twenty times too often to be catched in that same trap twice. It's Miss
Maud I wants, and Miss Maud I'll find, or ---- Lord bless her swate
face and morals, and her cha_rack_ter, and all belonging to her!--
isn't that, now, a prathy composure for the likes of her, and the
savages at the mill, and the Missus in tears, and the masther mighty
un'asy, and all of us bothered! See how she sits on that bit of a sate
that I puts there for her wid my own hands, as a laddy should, looking
jist what she is, the quane of the woods, and the delight of our eyes!"

Maud was too much accustomed to the rhapsodies of the county Leitrim-
man to think much of this commencement; but resolute to act her part
with discretion, she rose to meet him, speaking with great apparent
self-possession.

"Is it possible you are in quest of me?" she said--"why has this
happened?--I usually return about this hour."

"Hoors is it! Don't talk of hoors, beauthiful young laddy, when a
single quarther may be too late," answered Mike, dogmatically. "It's
your own mother that's not happy at yer being in the woods the night,