forth.  It was then with considerable agitation and a palpitating heart, that on the day following that of Donnel’s visit to her father’s she approached the Grey Stone, where, in the words of the prophet, she should meet “the young man who was to bring her love, wealth, and happiness, and all that a woman can wish to have with a man.”  The agitation she felt, however, was the result of a depression that almost amounted to despair.  Her faithful heart was fixed but upon one alone, and she knew that her meeting with any other could not, so far as she was concerned, realize the golden visions of Donnel Dhu.  The words, however, could not be misunderstood; the first person she met, on the right hand side of the way, after passing the Grey Stone, was to be the individual; and when we consider her implicit belief in Donnel’s prophecy, contrasted with her own impressions and the state of mind in which she approached the place, we may form a tolerably accurate notion of what she must have experienced.  On arriving within two hundred yards or so of the spot mentioned, she observed in the distance, about a half mile before her, a gentleman, on horseback, approaching her at rapid speed.  Her heart, on perceiving him, literally sank within her, and she felt so weak as to be scarcely able to proceed.

“Oh! what,” she at length asked herself, “would I not now give but for one glance of young Condy Dalton!  But it is not to be.  The unfortunate murdher of my uncle has prevented that for ever; although I can’t get myself to believe that any of the Daltons ever did it; but maybe that’s because I wish they didn’t.  The general opinion is, that his father is the man that did it.  May the Lord forgive them, whoever they are, that took his life—­for it was a black act to me at any rate!”

Across the road, before her, ran one of those little deep valleys, or large ravines, and into this had the horseman disappeared as she closed the soliloquy.  He had not, however, at all slackened his pace, but, on the contrary, evidently increased it, as she could hear by the noise of his horse’s feet.  At this moment she reached the brow of the ravine, and our readers may form some conception of what she felt when, on looking down it she saw her lover, young Dalton, toiling up towards her with feeble and failing steps, while pressing after him from the bottom, came young Henderson, urging his horse with whip and spur.  Her heart, which had that moment bounded with delight, now utterly failed her, on perceiving the little chance which the poor young man had of being the first to meet her, and thus fulfill the prophecy.  Henderson was gaining upon him at a rapid rate, and must in a few minutes have passed him, had not woman’s wit and presence of mind come to her assistance.  “If he cannot run up the hill,” she said to herself, “I can run to him down it”—­and as the thought occurred to her, she started towards him at her greatest speed, which indeed was considerable,