b'lieve she had little love for him. An' do you know what he used to say? 'I never marri'd the woman I liked best.'"

"He said that-did he?" Mr. Callanan asked, with a wild light in his eyes that resembled insanity.

"Twas well known in the great house that he often spoke them words. But why did you spake to me of his death? He raved before he died; an', as I said, he would see no one, an' laste of all, his own wife. He used to say, when there was no one nigh but mese'f-for, you see, I nursed him durin' his last sickness

"What used he say?" asked Mr. Callanan, impatiently.

"He used to say that the curse o' the family was fallin' on himself."

"The curse of the family!" Mr. Callanan repeated, with that wild light still in his eyes. "What does that mean?"

"Listen," said the old woman, once more advancing close to him, and placing her hand upon his shoulder. "The first of the Moores o' Moore's Court was a distant relative of the great Gillapatrick O'Moore, the chief who fought ag'in the English in the days of ould Harry, who sint a Prodistant archbishop to change the faith o' the people, an' he offered the land o' the ould lords that would'nt change to every distant cousin o' the family that turned over. Well, among thim who turned over and joined the English was Garret Moore (he threw away the O, you see), a distant cousin o' the family. An' they came to a part of this country where there was a monasthery; and they say Garret Moore was the first to point out the place where the poor monks lived, for he pretinded to be a ragin' fierce Prodistant entirely. Let us rob the place and thin burn it down,' cries Garret; an' with that he breaks in the gate, an' collects all the goolden chalices an' ornamints, an' carries as much as he can with him; an' the others do the same; an' thin they hack and kill the poor friars without a bit o' mercy. Some o' thim escaped over the walls; but the most o' thim were murthered in could blood. An' they say that one friar that was killed by Garret himself gave him his curse when he was dyin'. An' the curse was this: That, whatever his family should possess, hereafter, should be always slippin' from their grasp, an' that they should be dhrained out o' the country at last; an' that a time should come whin the sins of Garret himse'f an' those that were to come afther him should bring down God's vingeance on their heads, so that some o' thim should have a Hell even on earth."

"Oh! woman, your story is terribly real," exclaimed Mr. Callanan, with eyes that seemed to be literally on flame with passionate exultation: "that curse will fall upon the family soon."

"All o' them?" the woman inquired, with a strange feeling of superstitious dread at the solemn tone which her visitor's voice

"The curse

had assumed as he uttered those terrible words. didn't say they would all be lost. It said that every acre o' land that the family should ever possess would go into the hands o' sthrangers; but, it said, too, that if ever any of the Moores should marry a Catholic, an' have a child that should be given up to God, thin, whoever that might be, it would be the last of thim all, 'an' so,' says the dyin' friar, there is no chance for any o' ye to gain Heaven but by losin' all on earth.' Sure that part o' the curse may come thrue; an' may God grant it I pray!"

"I shall not detain you any longer," said Mr. Callanan, as he took a gold coin from his pocket and handed it to the old woman. "Oh! may the Lord reward you, sir!" cried Nance Flaherty, following him to the door, as he hurried out of the house.

With his face bent thoughtfully on the ground, and his lips set with the energy of an unflinching purpose, Mr. Callanan hastened back to Moore's Court.

(To be continued.)

THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY.

FOREMOST among the natural curiosities of Ireland, stands the celebrated plateau of columnar basalt situated on the northern coast of Antrim. This magnificent deposit, regarded either as to extent, or as to the grandeur and variety displayed in the wonderful arrangement of its symmetric formations, must rank as one of the most beautiful and striking phenomena of the kind exhibited on the surface of the globe. That portion of the range which is the main attraction to the tourist, lies nine miles north-east of Coleraine. From the abrupt cliffs here bordering the coast, one of the columnar beds of basalt dips gradually into the sea, forming in parts of its descent a series of superb natural colonnades and groups of prisms, resembling the creations of some Cyclopean architecture. This locality is known in Irish as Clochan-nabh Fomharaigh, "the stepping stones of the Fomorians," a race of pirates who, at a very remote period, infested these shores, and, having annihilated the colony of the Nemedians in the celebrated battle of Tory Island, took possession of the country. The memory of their leader, the renowned "Balor of the mighty blows," was long preserved by tradition, and his exploits, together with those of his followers, being distorted in popular legend, the pirates were magnified into giants, and this locality named after them the Giant's Cause

The Causeway is divided into three sections or plateaux, known as the Little, Middle (or Honeycomb), and the Great Causeway.

"Irish Names of Places."

The Great Causeway is at low water more than six hundred feet in iength. It is composed of many thousand basaltic columns, most of them pentagonal or hexagonal prisms, all irregular, yet forming, where of equal altitude, a plain surface, the sides of each corresponding exactly with those of the columns contiguous to it, and with such perfection that nothing can penetrate between the joints. Each pillar is in itself a study, being composed not of one entire stone, but divided into several blocks, varying from one foot to eighteen inches in length. These sections do not unite with level surfaces, but with concave and convex extremities, the convexity of the one stone corresponding with the concavity of the other.

The student who may be startled by the interrogatory in Mageoghan's History of Ireland, “Is the Giant's Causeway a work of nature or of art ?"-a question formerly in dispute among the learned-need not be referred to geological science to assist him in arriving at a solution. Sir James Ware thus remarks in his "Antiquities of Ireland:"--"We call that the work of human art, which is effected according to the rules of human knowledge; i: men had designed to make a firm work of pillars, so united as to make a close and firm surface on the top, they would, by observing the rules of geometry, have made none but triangular, square, or hexagonal pillars. But as the Causeway is composed of pillars, whose sections consist of unequal-sided polygons, every pillar having its side fitted to match the contiguous one, this surprising structure is evidently the work of a superior agent. The juncture of the several stones, effected by a most curious articulation which could not be accomplished without infinite labour, also shows this work to be the effect of nature."

The

The prismatic form which the basalt frequently assumes, is accounted for by geologists as the result of contraction on the cooling of the lava flow, this species of rock being of igneous origin, occurring both in the Trap and Volcanic series. prisms are in general found at right angles to the greatest extension of the lava bed; the planes of columnar crystallization striking from the primary cooling surface toward the centre of the mass.

In the wild and lonely magnificence of the scenery of the Causeway, there is a singular suggestiveness and weird sublimity. Contemplating the dense array of those myriad columns-here towering in the majesty of their beautiful formation; here clus tered in a variety of groups wonderfully picturesque; here ranged with the order and symmetry of art-the imagination seems transported among the ruins of some primeval sanctuary of nature, destined to perpetuate the marvels of that distant morning of time when this giant pavement was first sprinkled with the billowy foam, and the newly-born earth poured forth her homage to the Creator in the solemn diapason of the deep.