Sarah’s excitement and distraction, however, resulting from her last interview with young Dalton, giving as it did, a fatal blow to her passion and her hopes, vehement and extraordinary as they were, threw her across her father’s path at the precise moment when her great but unregulated spirit, inflamed by jealousy and reckless from despair, rendered her most accessible to the wily and aggravating arguments with which he tempted and overcame her.  Thus did he, so far as human means could devise, or foresight calculate, provide for the completion of two plots instead of one.

It is true, Mave Sullivan was not left altogether without being forewarned.  Nobody, however, had made her acquainted with the peculiar nature of the danger that was before her.  Nelly M’Gowan, as she was called, had strongly cautioned her against both Donnel and Sarah, but then Nelly herself was completely in the dark as to the character of the injury against which she warned her, so that her friendly precautions were founded more upon the general and unscrupulous profligacy of Donnel’s principles, and his daughter’s violence, than upon any particular knowledge she possessed of her intentions towards her.  Mave’s own serene and innocent disposition was such in fact as to render her not easily impressed by suspicion; and our readers may have perceived, by the interview which took place between her and Sarah, that from the latter, she apprehended no injury.

It was on the following day after that interview, about two o’clock, that while she was spreading some clothes upon the garden hedge, during a sickly gleam of sunshine, our friend the pedlar made his appearance, and entered her father’s house.  Mave having laid her washing before the sun, went in and found him busily engaged in showing his wares, which consisted principally of cutlery and trinkets.  The pedlar, as she entered, threw a hasty glance at her, perceived that she shook down her luxuriant hair, which had been disarranged by a branch of thorn that was caught in it while stretching over the hedge.  She at once recognized him, and blushed deeply; but he seemed altogether to have forgotten her.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, “well, that I may be blest, but it’s many a long day since I seen such a head o’ hair as that!  Holy St. Countryman, but it’s a beauty.  Musha, a Ora Gal, maybe you’ll dispose of it, for, in troth, if ever a face livin’ could afford to part with its best ornament, your’s is that one.”

Mave smiled and blushed at the compliment, and the pedlar eyed her apparently with a mixed feeling of admiration and compassion.

“No,” she replied, “I haven’t any desire to part with it.”

“You had the sickness, maybe?”

“Thanks be to the mercy of God,” she fervently exclaimed, “no one in this family has had it yet.”

“Well, achora,” he continued, “if you take my advice you’ll dispose of it, in regard that if the sickness—­which may God prevent—­should come, it will be well for you to have it off you.  If you sell it, I’ll give you either money or value for it; for indeed, an’ truth it flogs all I’ve seen this many a day.”