AN IRISH ROMANCE.

THERE is a lone upper world among the Connemara hills seldom visited by any way farer from the ordinary paths of life. Moun tains form bulwarks around it; the gates into it are narrow deiiles between rugged crags ; the centres of its silent valleys are deep lakes, cold and greyas steel, or black with the shadow of the rain-clouds. _ ■

On a summer morning an inquisitive ex plorer of tills lonesome world passed a smoking hovel, and while gazing on it in dismay, almost expecting to see a gnome or monster issue from it, was startled by the appearance of an exquisite face which shone on him for a moment and vanished. The solitary rambler in so eerie a spot was at the moment in an imaginative mood, and open to all influences o£ the beautiful and supernatural, and almost believed _ that a sprite of the mountain had crossed his path, and that she had a hateful message for him in her eyes; but shaking himself, into a more rational frame of mind he went on his way. Macha, the owner of the beautiful face, had withdrawn it hastily into the interior of the cabin, scared at the unwonted sight of a stranger, as lowland dwellers might be scared by a ghost. The cabin was so poor that, only for the red hearth and the warm smell of smoke, it might have been mistaken for a shed for cattle. The earthen floor was uneven and full of holes; the roof, of heather and sticks, was blackened with smoke ; the hearth-stone was broken. One crazy table, one chair, and two or-three other nondescript seats ; a kettle, a pot, a battered tin can, and a few mugs and plates —these were the chief contents of the dwelling's principal room. Looking around one might well ask by what, means life could be supported in this place. Patches of potatoes that struggled for existence be tween bos; and rock close by, and a black cutting, that showed like an ugly wound on the face of a distant level, and was the turf-mine ; these gave the only answer to such inquiry. An old woman sat spinning in the corner of the cabin, lean and smoke dried, liko a mummy, her dark-red garment, and the yellow handkerchief wound turbau wise round her head, making a spot of sub dued colour in the murky picture. The contents of a pot of potatoes had been tnrncd out on the table ; and Macha, who with a peculiar cry had summoned the family from their work at the bog to dinner, stood in the middle of the floor, with a slant light falling on her from the sky, across the mountain peaks, through the smoke-stained doorway. Her skirt of crimson wool, spun by the granddame in the corner, and dyed •with madder by Macha herself, was short enough to show her white feet shining on the earthen floor. Over it she wore a short brown bodice, and a few yards of course yellow-white calico were wound about her shoulders, and had been about her head, but the drapery had fallen back in a sort of cowl behind her neck. The after-glow of the sunset was abroad when Macha went out again, to roam round the lake in a fashion of her own. A strange amber-and-red reflection illuminated one side of the sky and the mountain peaks, in tensified by gloomy fringes trailed along the horizon. Delicate green tints over spread the other ; and in this fairer skyey field had blossomed the round white moon, brightening momentarily, . and shining amont' the early stars like a lily among daisies.

Macha clasped her hands over her head and gazed round her half fearfully, enjoying and understanding the beauty of it all. She had heard of a shining city beyond the gold and silver gates of the sun and the moon ; also of earthly cities, wonderful too, but not so beautiful, that lay down below the mountains in the busy world of iiten. She meant to go to the one, but she did not care to visit the others. Her mountain home, with its inhabitants, contained the desire of her heart. The old brown crucifix on tlio cabin wall was her passport to the final happy destination of all patient souls, wliither she and all she loved would depart when tho Master should send them n message to come. Nothing natural or supernatural dismayed or disgusted her. If there were spirits in the rocks and fairies in the lake, the Almighty knew what they were doing there, and everything was all for the best.

'Macha, come in,' called her mother from the cabin. 'Something will get you.' ' Ay, mother, I am coming, said Macha ; but still she lingered looking hard at a piece of rock that seemed to be taking the shape of ' something.' The clouds are alive, and move and change—why should not the rocks ? Suddenly a living person seemed to emerge out of the rock and come beside her; and, startled, she would have fallen into tho lake had not a strong arm seized hor and swung her into safety. ' Holy Mother 1 I nearly drowned you !' cried Macha, looking at the same traveller who had passed the cabin in the morning. ' I nearly drowned you,'said the stranger, gazing in wonder at her beauty, which seemed to have become almost unearthly, as the still warm glow from one side irradi ated her hair, and the greenish moonlight from the other whitened her round cheek and the drapery of her shoulder. 'I thought you were—him who lives down in the lake,' whispered Mocha.

'Who is he?'

She looked all round in the air, and her lovely face caught a thousand reflections of flitting colours and lights. Then she signed with her hand toward the dark lake.

' The water is deep,' she said, 'and there is many a thing down there. But you are a living man, for I saw you in the morning.' ' And you are a living woman,' he eaid. ' I almost thought you were a spirit moving along tho edge of the lake. Why do you keep so close to the edge ? I thought I saw you walking on the water.' ' I like to look in and see what I can see,' said the girl mysteriously. 'Do you always walk here in the even ing V 'Yes, and sometimes a bit at dawn. Mother says something wicked will meet me. But I have only met you, and you are not wicked.'

' I am not as good as I ought to .be,' said the man tremulously, answering tlie look of simple faith and approval in tho girl's wonderful eyes. ' But I hope I am not alto gether wicked;' and the strangeness of his own humility escaped his notice. 'I do not much believe in.wickedness myself.' said Macha, 'except, of course, in the great dliiaoul1 (devil), crossing herself. 'But he will never hurt me, unless I do something wrong.' ' What do you sec when you walk here in the dawn!'

' I.see tho blessed spirits trooping up and down the skies. Anybody could see them. Sometimes they come down upon the hills ; but change into white clouds and run away when they come too near me. There is my mother calling me, and the supper is ready.' ' By what name is she calling you ?' ' Macha is my name. If you will eat a few potatoes I will bring them out to you.' 'I am not hungry, Macha, and I am going back to the inn. But if you offer me some another day I will take them.

The girl went in to her mother, and the stranger returned through the rugged moun tain, retracing the steps he had made in the morning. The inn lay under the hills, a fewmilee below the wildregioh where Macha

had been born, in which she had grown to womanhood, eating the potatoes she had helped to produce, and watching the blessed spirits trooping up and down the skies.

' Something will get you,' said Madia's mother for tlic hundreth time, as the girl' appeared for her supper ; and she was not wrong, for Fate had got hold of Macha that very night, He was going back to the inn that he might have further opportunities of seeing this girl," and yet he told himself that his admiration for her was merely an'abstract idea; - that, after he had seen her a few times and studied her exceptional, beauty and character he would go on his way con tented, rejoicing to have perceived that Nature can be still so lovely and unspoiled in her own secret fastnesses, bcyondthe ken of the world. His rest was broken that night by a new excitement, and heawakeued in the dawn to fancy he saw Macha walking, with her bare white feet, in the rosy liglit round the margin of the lake. He wanted to hear her voice again, and feel the touch of her hand. It struck him as remarkable that she had shown no shyness of him, speaking to : him as naturally as if he nad been her brother; and he divined that this • was so be cause site knew nothing of ranks and classes. Only the supernatural had power to awe her, and she had felt safe and happy as soon as she had assured herself that lie was a living man. Accustomed to the at tention of women, he would have felt less attraction toward Macha had sh.o shown any desire for his return. The absence of all coquetry in her delighted him. The girl thought of him lying on her straw hod in the dead of the night. There was a hole in the roof above her head, a hole that would be thatched over with heather for the winter, but at presont it was good to let in the air of heaven. Through it Macha could see a star shining in the sky like a little island of splendour ill' an ocean of dark blue, and the rugged twigs of the broken heather made a rough frame for the bit of glory. The stranger re appeared next day, and for many days afterward haunted the moun tain. Macha had leave from her mother to accompany him in his search for the wild flowers, which, ho explained to them, ho wanted for scientific purposes. The little sisters frisked about them, and took their share in the search, dancing like young kids on the edgo of precipices, with wild bright eyes and Hying locks. Potatoes boiled in the cabin were eaten on the heather, and the long summer days went past like the beads on a goldon rosary told brightly through the fingers. The man was brotherly and kind with the little girls and the elder women, but he recognised a gulf between them and Macha. Their speech, translated literally from the Irish, though poetical and musical enough, was not deli cately correct, as his ear imagined hers to be; their swift feet were not white, nor was their clothing spotless. Macha, who bathed in the lake overy morning, and hangout her yellow hair to dry in the first beams of the sun, and who wore hor well-bleached draperies like a princess, could not keep young nor old from dyeing their skins and garments in the bog-holes. An instinctive personal delicacy had come to Macha with her exceptional beauty. At the end of a fortnight the stranger told himself that this mountain flower was worthy of being trans planted into the brightest parterre ever cherished by man. And what a month ago would have appeared to him only madness seemed now-the most sensible course he could pursue. Macha came into the cabin one evening in the gloaming with a face of dismay. ' Mother I'■ she said, grasping her mother's arm.

' What is on you, child ?' ' The Sassenach is asking me to go away with him.'

' Away with him ?' ' He wants to give me a satin gown and arm«, and take me to lus home.' .'Well, avourncen,' with a long sigh, 'if he makes you a true wife, and is good to you, you would be better with him than here.

'Mother,' cried the girl passionately, ' have I vexed you; have I angered you that you would turn me from your door ?' • Turn you away, asthorc machree! Macha, are you mad! Wouldn't it be only to sco you happy and well? I sup pose the man has a good farm, and can pay Ids rent. And you would be well wanned and fed, my Macha, though your mother's hearth would be blank."

' I don't want to be well warmed and fed ; I ara as well oft" as you and the grand mother and the girlshos. He would take me out to England, orcr the sea—to the other end of the world !'

And the girl sobbed wildly on her mother's shoulder.

1 Send him off, then, acushla machree. Why need you break your heart about what nobody is going to bid you do? Your mother before you never wore a fine gown; and wo will be huugry together as we always were. 1

Madia's weeping subsided a little; bnt only to break out again as fiercely as before. •I cannot send him away, mother! I love him, as well as you. Oh, why did he ever come over tho mountain? Better it had been him that lives down in the lake !'

The mother stood aghast. ' Holy Virgin !' she cried; 'and'tis only a score of days since we saw him first. Then, if you love him like that, my daughter, you arc bound to be his wife. You must go—even to England over the sea!' 'You don't know what you are saying, mother. How could 1 live without seeing your face ?' 'As many have to live, my Macha. May be he would-bring you back to see us. And you might be able to send us the pota to seed or a piece of the good flannel to keep us warm.1

Macha looked piteously in her mother's eyes, and then round the familiar cabin; the storm came down again upon her heart, and she flung up her arms and fell into a swoon. Her lover arriving up the moun tain, found her lying white on the heather outside the door, with her head on her mother's knees, and was thus led into utter ing promises, which, else, he might never have made.

' It's only the heart that is too strong in her.' said the poor mother 3orrowfnlly. 'It is ill to love a stranger that must part you from your own.1 ' I swear to bring her back,' said the man, eagerly. 'She shall come whenever she pleases, and bring as many good tilings as she likes. We might even build a house in the vallpy below.' At this the color.began to return into Ma cha's cheeks, and tho comfortable promises sank deep into her mind. Little by little the struggle between the new love and the old was softened away ; the ■will of the stranger prevailed, and the marriage took place in a little rude moun tain chapel where Macha had been baptized, and where, travelling through rain, hail and storm, she had knelt every Sunday since she had been able to walk, At the church doors the husband reiterated the promise that he would bring her back; very soon she would return to the mountain. He almost tore his bride away, weeping and half fainting from the embraces of her people, from the clinging of their thin brown hands, and the kisses of their weather beaten faces. And in spite of the promises

ho had just repeated, he was glad to think that he had probably seen the last of tins wild mountain tribe.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert dressed his wife in a lady's garb, and surrounded her with all the appointments that were suited to her new station. The first jar to his happiness was given by his perception that, beautiful as was Macha in her silks and laces and trinkets, musical as was her«speech, grace ful as were her movements, there was yet something wanting in her to make her a bride that could be presented, without the risk of criticism, to his friends. The en chanting mountain girl, with her pic turesque beauty and wild charming ways, was no more. The lovely Lady Gilbert was a little too unconventional, with her soft brogue, her vivid and figurative language, her quick, natural gestures, her little slips in grammar, aud artless habitual utterance of the truth. But Sir Humphrey was very patient with her, and set to work to polish his precious gem iri the rough. A long time passed over, and the husband felt no desire to revisit the highlands of Connaught. 'Dear,' said his wife to. him one day, 'when are we going back to see my mother 2'

She was standing before him in a flowing robe of soft white stuffy with her honey coloured hair dressed by a French maid, with jewels in her cars, aud flowers at her breast, looking such a picture of beauty and refinement that even the peculiar into nation that still clung to her speech could "not declare her other than a lady. Macha possessed in a high degree the power of adapting herself to the ways of those around her. Her husband recognized this power in her, and relied upon it to carry him through the consequences of his own rash and extraordinary conduct. He was grate ful to his wife for the persistent efforts he saw her make, knowing she was influenced solely by luvc for him, for she took but little interest in the pleasures that sur rounded her. He did not know how far she was influenced by another motive also, the desire to earn a reward, in the fulfilment of his promise to bring her back to her native hills.

So long ago did it seem, that folly that had married him to a peasant wife, that all recollection of the details of the circum stances had almost passed away from his mind. He was a man of quick, overpower ing impulses, and memories that faded with ease. Things that were full of pathetic interest to him yesterday were very likely to bo follies to him to-day. Yet he was faithful in his affection for Macha, and the sight of her struggling with her difficulties, labouring to make herself all that he could wish, and succeeding by the inspiration of something like genius, touched aud de lighted the best feelings of his nature. He was the more disposed to be satisfied with the results of his marriage because his wife's low extraction was a secret from liis associates. It was believed that she was the daughter of a noble but impoverished Irish family—that she had been neglected in her early years, aud been educated by her husband. A pretty romance had be g constructed, how, or by whom, Sir Hum plirey did not know. His wife's gentle grace was the real foundation for it; and, at all events, ho had' not the courage to contradict the tale.

With all this good luck there was some thing wanting to their happiness. Macha did not fall in rapture with the splendours of her home, nor with the amusements of society, nor with the flatteries and triumphs that fell to her share. She only lial£ lived in luxury by her husband's side; the other half of her lived on the mountains among the privations to which she was born. Under her rich sables she shuddered at the cold on her mother's limbs ; and by her own glowing fireside she kept counting the sods of turf that might have been saved from the rainy season to keep warmth in the aged grandmother's withered frame. She heard the little sisters saying, 'What is Macha doing ? Macha is so happy she has forgotten us !' The heart within her was getting every day more chill, because as yet her husband's promise did not seem likely to be fulfilled. At List she had summoned courage, and asked him the question. ' When will you let me see my mother ?' ' It is out of the question at present, love,' he said; ' but you shall send her any present you please.' She shut lier eager lips, seeing that her husband would not bear to be urged. He went hurriedly out of the room, and Macha stood silently by the lire, with a strange grey cloud overshadowing her face. The third summer had gone by, and now again the winter was passing, and she seemed further than ever from attaining the great desire of her heart. A minute she stood where he had left her, with closed eyes, climbing in spirit the rough ascent to the mountain cabin. In imagination she threw herself at her mother's feet, begged her forgiveness, assured her of her love, pleaded her inability to keep her word. Then with a long sigli she unclosed her eyes, unbent her brows and patiently went about her occupations. She took advantage of her. husband's permission to send a present—a cloak for the grandmother and nannel for the mother and the little sisters. There was much trouble about addressing the parcel so that it might reach that distant and isolated cabin; but the trouble was taken, and that the parcel went safely home was known by the arrival of an acknow ledgment of the gift—a grotesque scrawl in pen and ink, scarcely legible, but expressive of love and gratitude. Sir Humphrey read the curious document with a curling lip, and threw it in the fire. Allow his wife to go back among these savages ? No ; it was not likely ho could be so foolish. One such folly in a lifetime was surely enough. They must learn to forget Macha, and Macha must learn to forget them. Madia's obedience was aggravating. From time to time she would say to him imploringly, ' When will you allow me to go?' and when answered unsatisfactorily, would turn away with that dull look of patience that was becoming habitual to her countenance. She lived in a state of pain ful suspense, of silent expectation, which showed she had not taken in the idea that he was resolved never to grant her request. The memory of his promise was still so fresh in her thoughts. Her stupidity was the blindness of perfect faith. A bitter season set in, and Sir Humphrey, looking at his wife's thin cheek, and the darkening trouble about her eyes, bethought him of taking her to some gay city, to a genial climate, and the novelty of strange places and faces. He had watched her walking to and fro among his comfortable tenantry, in and out of their warm, whole some dwellings, and lie knew what brought the quiver of pain across her eyes. She was thinking of that dreary hovel 111110113 the wilds of the Connaught hills. Where the sun always shines lie thought she would forget how cold and hunger sting. So the Christmas guests were put oil, and Sir Humphrey and Lady Gilbert went to winter at Florence, .

Uncomplainingly Macha did her husband's bidding. She said to herself, 'When we come back, early in the sprint he will take me or let me go.' In the mild air of Italy she did not realize so keenly the well-remem bered rigours of the Connaught winter. Her imagination was caught by the beauties that surrounded her, and for a little time Sir Humphrey thought his triumph was athand.

It was but an accident that turned the scale against him, and made shipwreck of his pfans and of Madia's life. Accident of fate led Lady Gilbert, who rarely looked at any thing printed, to glance into the columns of an English newspaper, and a paragraph met her eye in which certain rough state ments were made regarding a famine of food and fuel in certain parts of hungry and melancholy Connaught. ■ Instantly her long suffering patience gave way, and all .the latent fire of her nature burst forth. She (lew to her husband with burning eyes, and laid her finger on the cruel lines." Sir' Humphrey was in an irritable humour. Cut off from his customary country pur suits, idling in a foreign city, he had fallen into play, and had lost heavily the night before this eventful morning. The sight of his wife's feverish emotion made him angry ; her passionate demand to bo sent with suc cour to her people chafed and bewildered him. Macha ! for whose good he had in convenienced himself so seriously, left his home in the winter, lowered himself to sit at the;table with gamblers !—Macha to rise and turn on. him with those flaming eyes ! He riiet her Svith a flat denial, and uttered some bitter reproaches, upbraiding her with her imprudence and persistent folly. Hay ing begun to give a little vent to his dis pleasure, he ended by saying more than he had over meant to say. He refused to be lieve in the newspaper's tale of distress, and forbade her to mention her people again. Macha stood like one stunned, slowly taking in what his angry words conveyed. As she had believed his words before, so she believed them now* They fell upon her like blows, and, when lie had turned harshly away and left her under sentence of his dis pleasure, one only desire and determination possessed her—to get away out of this cruel world of plenty, and bring food and comfort to her famishing mother. She did not weigh the consequences of defying her hus band ; her agony and longing blotted out even the memory of his existence. How she made her way to Connaught who shall tell ? As the liones3 finds her stolen young, so did Macha scent the path to her native hills. Accustomed to rely upon her hus band for everything, to follow his instruc tions and mark out nothing for herself, she must have made almost supernatural exer tions to accomplish her end. But accomp lish it she did. When her husband returned that night, half angry and half relenting,' revolving plans for reconciliation, taking counsel with himself as to how he ought to deal with her, knowing very well that he meant to send a largess to those creatures on the mountain who were such a thorn in his sido—when he came back to his home that night Macha was gone. Dismay, anger, terror all passed through and over him. He first swore and con demned her; then remembered her sweet face and her former patience, and almost forgave her. Uneasily he resolved to_ let her go and have her way. He had given her money yesterday, commanding her to spend it on her own amusement; for the present she could not want; and this reck less visit would be sure to tame her. . Very goon she would be glad to return to hini on auy terms. Thus torn by distracting thoughts, Sir Humphrey went back alone to his English home. Pride, obstinacy, and the conviction that his wife was wrong and required punishment and humiliation, pre vented his following her to Ireland. The sun was setting behind the whitened peaks when Macha came wearily up the last ascent of the hills. Thero were the bare seamed levels, the weird rocks,_ the scant green patches, the dark, mysterious looking lake. ' Oh, God, I have returned !' broke from her. 'There is my mother's cabin.' The fierce ache that had gnawed her heart suddenly left it, and a glow of satisfaction went tingling through her veins. Strange,, instinctive, unreasoning love of home and kindred that can forbid a human being to accept ease and pleasure in exchange for the suffering of ■ want! Macha, who had been delivered over to abundanco and luxury, cast them from her like broken fetters, and rushed forward into the embraces of her old companion and foster-mother—Poverty. This was the spot where she had danced and sung, wept and prayed; where she had been hungry and cold and full of care, and had been neces sary to the existence of those she loved. Here was where she had watched, half credulous, for the fairies among the rocks ; and, wholly believing, beheld with delight the procession of glorified beings in the heavens. This was the home of her pas sionate devotion—the straight' hard bed from which she could endure to yield up her mortal breath. ■ ■ ; : .

Only the eagles, and whatever super natural beings had been lurking near, heard the clamour of wild cries that arose in the isolated cabin at sight of her. 'Mother,, there is something beautiful coming that looks like Madia | cried one of the little sisters. ' Macha must be dead, and coming from heaven to see us!' And they all stood solemnly in the doorway to watch the approach of the apparition. But when Madia's living lips spoke to them, and her outstretched hands touched them, then arose such cries as the rocks gave back.

When Macha, having ministered to their bodily wants, and comforted their hearts with her love, lay down that night on the old familiar bed of straw, she had time to remember the husband from before whose angry. face she had fled. 'He will never love me more,' thought she; 'he will never come back to seek me again.' She tried to comfort herself with the thought that she was still the Macha of old, and would work for her people ; but the tears poured from her eyes, and her passionate heart was not satisfied yet. Next day she went about her work in her old dress, and tried to forget that she had ever been away from her home. Painfully she saw the misery and squalor of it, and planned such little improvements as might he within her reach. But soft living had spoiled Macha for privation and toil. .;,.'■..';'.

' When a wife leaves her husband,' thought Macha, ' of course he will not want her any more.' She blamed no one but herself. ' I behaved badly to my mother in leaving her at first,' she reflected, ' and badly to my. husband in ruuning away against his will. There must be a twist in me somehow, for I know I did not want to do wrong.' Sorrow-stricken, remorseful, perplexed, she lived through the long uneventful days and nights. The strength ebbed away from her limbs, the light from her eyes. She made no complaint, for she was willing to endure bravely in expiation of the wilfulness of her sins. Her one burning desire was to see her husband before she died; yet, so self-condemned did she stand, she could not summon courage to implore him to come. Sir Humphrey sat at home in the depths of what may be truly called a sulk. He had more than half forgiven his wilfulwife, and was ready to receive her should she seek to return. He was willing to go and fetch her as soon as she should send for hini; and it is not wonderful that he was at fault as to her motives and conduct, for her nature had always been a riddle to 'Kirn, Why could she not write and tell him where sha was ? That much he had a light to expect from her. He was quite resolved not to go in search for her, not to attempt to communi cate with her till her penitent cry should be heard, and till her love should make her ask to be taken back to his home. He told all who required to know that Lady Gilbert

was paying a visit in her native land, and then sat in his loneliness awaiting some sign.

One evening Macha sat at the cabin door, thinking of her husband, owning her tees passes, and watching the sun set redly behind tho mountain-peaks, the sun that never was to rise for her again. That night she turned her eyes on tho old brown crucifix which was to her as the passport to that region where the weary are at rest. She was not so glad to go as she might havd? been hacl she never met.any one whilei walking in her girlish innocence round the margin of the lake. ' Tell him I was sorry,' were the last words she whispered in her mother's car.

The sign that Sir Humphrey waited for came at last iii the shape of a scrawled ' letter, with an unpronounceable name on j the postmark. ' Come to the mountain to v see your son,' it said, ; Macha, the mother, is dead.' That sorrow is long past now, Sir Humph-.*, rey is married to a more suitable wife, and-•;, life has gone pleasantly with him. His eldest son has Macha's eyes, with often a * grave, sad, unaccountable expression in them, which, in the misdt of mirth, will-• make his father start and sigh, while the : words of the poor peasant mother on the mountain will come ringing back in his ear.:. "Tis only the heart that is too strong in. her; and it's ill to love a stranger that must ,• part you from your own !'—' Time,' ■ -/I

PROBATION:

A TALE OF THE Lancashire Cotton Faming By Miss Jessie Fothergill. ' ——*— —- ' fo* The first chapters of the above: interesting and instructive serial"' story will be published in the " Saturday Supplement " next week. Readers should look, out [-; for it, and see that they get the; :• ■ : ' .:. it ;•: "jf story from the first. . . *T •

The Actor and the Pocket Hand kerchief.

Actors have hard times as well as other " folks, and the experience of the talented Me" Masher proves it. . It appears he was playing, in a piece which required him, at a very thrilling point, to pull a handkerchief from the hip pocket of another actor, and present it to the heroine with some very glowing words. The other actor, Mr Snigg, was somewhat addicted to the use of liquor, and while;dress- jj ing for the performance he. got too full anct'. went to sleep. Then some of the other actors removed the handkerchief from his pocket, and, cutting a hole in-his-pocket, drew a corner; of Mr Snigg's shirt into it. It wasapecu-;; liarity of Mr Masher that when he acted he got so dead in earnest that nothing could stop him, and when he came to' the handkerchief scene he rushed up to the only half-awake Snigg, grabbed for the handkerchief, anif found it didn't come ; but he failed to notice; the situation. The piece couldn't go on until he produced the handkerchief, so he gave another desperate tug. The only result, was that a wild look came into Snigg's eye, and he tried to whisper to Masher that there was some thing wrong; but Masher didn't understand. The people were waiting for him ; if was" "aft; - awkward pause. Masher was a man, of great strength, and he gave a last desperate^ tug at what he believed was the handkerchief. It came, but with a sound of tearing, and Snigg was yanked right off his feet, and his eyes nearly burst from their sockets from the pres sure on his throat before the neck-band broke. Masher got most of the garment except the sleeves, and the sudden disappearance of Snigg's shirt bosom created much excitement in the audience. Even then Masher didn't notice what he had done, and rushing forward ~ tendered the garment to the heroine. But she screamed and fainted, and the audience began: to yell, and Snigg, having recovered his breath,, became terribly mad, and made a rush at Masher with a property sword, and chased; him about, and the stage manager, who was nearly. -wild, jumped, in and declared that' Masher had disgraced the house, and then the curtain went down, and a little while after the/, manager came in front of it with a black ey& and dismissed the audience. Snigg and: Masher now both want situations and each, other's gore.— Boston Post.

A Nihilist Story of Love and Suicide.

The Vienna Prcsse relates a strange story of a respectable St. Petersburg family. Th& eldest daughter of the house, aged 18, was betrothed a few months ago to a student of good birth and brilliant promise. The couple were most tenderly attached, and the marriage was to have taken place on the Wednesday in Easter week. On Easter Monday, when the young man made a visit to his intended bride, and her parents had left the room, he suddenly told her that he had an important confession to make to her, and entreated her to hear it with patience and self-command. She was naturally excited, fearing to hear of some prior love entanglemeU ; but she was struck with horror when she learned that the man to whom she had given her he*rt, and with whom she ex« pected to spend her life, belonged to the Nihilist party. The lover shocked her still more by saying that as he had now no doubt of her devotion to him, he felt certain that he should find her a faithful companion in the revolutionary career which he had planned for them. The poor girl saw all her hopes of peace and domestic joy dashed to pieces in a moment. She told him that she loved him above all the world, but if he persisted in his horrible course she could not live with him, though if she had to live without him she should die of grief. She was so resolute that the young man drew a dagger to terrify .her. She Ml the room, and her sweetheart rushed fro.n the house. The girl fell into a swoon, and was found in this condition by her mother, who could get no reply to her questions. The poor girl went to her own room and took poison. Her act was discovered in time to send for a physician; but it was too late to save her life, although her parents managed at last to draw from her the true cause of her suicidal act. The girl died, and the Nihilist student is nOTr in the hands of the police,

STAR SATURDAY SUPPLEMENT

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