The Collegians | Page 4

Edward however was appointed to a parish, and Eily lost her instructor. It was for her a severe loss, and most severe in reality when its effect upon her own spirits began to wear away. For some months after his departure, she continued to lead the same retired and unobtrusive life, and no eye, save that of a consummate observer, could detect the slightest alteration in her sentiments, the least increase of toleration for the world and worldly amusements. That change however had been silently effected in her heart. She was now a woman-a lovely, intelligent, full grown woman-and circumstances obliged her to take a part in the little social circle which moved around her. Her spirits were naturally light, and, though long repressed, became readily assimilated to the buoyant tone of the society in which she happened to be placed. Her father, who, with a father's venial vanity, was fond of showing his beautiful child among his neighbours, took her with him one evening to Owen's garden, at a time when it was unusually gay and crowded, and from that evening might be dated the commencement of a decided and visible change in the lovely Eily's character.
As gradual as the approach of a spring morning, was the change from grave to gay in the costume of this flower of the suburbs. It dawned at first in a handsome bow-knot upon her headdress, and ended in the full noontide splendour of flowered muslins, silks, and sashes. It was like the opening of the rose-bud, which gathers around it the winged wooers of the summer meadow. "Lads, as brisk as bees," came thronging in her train, with proffers of "honourable love and rites of marriage;" and even among the youths of a higher rank, whom the wild levity of Irish blood and high spirits, sent to mingle in the festivities of Owen's garden, a jealousy prevailed respecting the favour of the handsome rope-maker's daughter. It was no wonder that attentions paid by individuals so much superior to her ordinary admirers, should render Eily indifferent to the sighs of those plebeian suitors. Dunat O'Leary the hair-cutter, or Foxy Dunat, as he was named in allusion to his red head, was cut to the heart by her utter coldness. Myles Murphy, likewise, a good natured farmer from Killarney, who travelled through the country selling Kerry ponies, and claiming relationship with every one he met, claimed kindred in vain with Eily, for his claim was not allowed. Lowry Looby too, the servant of Mr. Daly, a wealthy middleman who lived in the neighbourhood, was suspected by many to entertain delusive hopes of Eily O'Connor's favour-but this report was improbable enough, for Lowry could not but know that he was a very ugly man; and if he were as beautiful as Narcissus, Mihil O'Connor would still have shut the door in his face for being as poor as Timon. So that though there was no lack of admirers, the lovely Eily, like many celebrated beauties in a higher rank, ran, after all, a fair chance of becoming what Lady Mary Montague has elegantly termed "a lay nun." Even so a bookworm, who will pore over a single volume from morning till night, if turned loose into a library, wanders from shelf to shelf, bewildered amid a host of temptations, and unable to make any election until he is surprised by twilight, and chagrined to find, that with so much happiness within his grasp, he has spent, nevertheless, an unprofitable day.
But accident saved Eily from a destiny so deeply dreaded and so often lamented as that above alluded to,-a condition which people generally agree to look upon as one of utter desolation, and which, notwithstanding, is frequently a state of greater happiness than its opposite. On the even of the seventeenth of March, a day distinguished in the rope-maker's household, not only as the festival of the national Saint, but as the birth-day of the young mistress of the establishment; on this evening, Eily and her father were enjoying their customary relaxation at Owen's garden. The jolly proprietor was seated as usual, with his rope-twisting friend, under the yellow osier, while Myles Murphy, who had brought a number of his wild ponies to be disposed of at the neighbouring fairs, had taken his place at the end of the table, and was endeavouring to insinuate a distant relationship between the Owens of Kilteery, connections of the person whom he addressed, and the Murphys of Knockfodhra, connections of his own. A party of young men were playing fives at a ball alley, on the other side of the green; and another, more numerous, and graced with many female figures, were capering away to the tune of the fox-hunter's jig, on the short grass. Some poor old women,