BY THE AUTHOR OF "ABEL DRAKE'S WIFE."

"If the first among the problems of life be how to establish the peace
and restore the balance of the inward being-

"I know not what true definition there is for any age or people of the high-
est excellence of any kind, unless it be perpetual effort upward in pursuit of
an object higher than ourselves, higher than our works, higher even than our
hopes, yet beckoning us on from hour to hour, and always permitting us to
apprehend in part."

"It is, I think, an observation of St. Augustine, that those periods are
critical and formidable, when the power of putting questions runs greatly in
advance of the pains to answer them. Such appears to be the period in which
we live."

HIREL L.

CHAPTER I.

HIRELL'S JOURNEY.

CUNLIFF felt himself possessed by a wild joyousness, unlike the calm, deep happiness he had had in Hirell's society at Ewyn y Rhairdr. His step was quick and elastic, his glance restless, his very voice irrepressible; and Hirell smiled to hear him several times singing a snatch of some sweet air she had never heard, and which, as soon as she was interested in it, would be stopped and another begun.

Hirell's mood was very different. She was silent, and her steps were slow and measured. As they were descending the little path

VOL. III.

1