Farewell, Ellen; and if I can prevail on my father to bring you back, I will." And so they parted.
Connor's father was a tenant of the squire's, and held rather a comfortable farm of about eighteen or twenty acres.

Ellen herself had, when very young, been, by some accident or other, brought within the notice of Mrs.Folliard, who, having been struck by her vivacity, neatness of figure, and good looks, begged permission from her parents to take the little girl under her care, and train her up to wait upon her daughter.

She had now been eight years in the squire's family--that is, since her fourteenth--and was only two years older than the _Cooleen Baum_, who was now, and had been for the last three years, her only mistress.

She had consequently grown, is it were, into all her habits, and we may justly say that there was not an individual in existence who had a better opportunity of knowing and appreciating her good qualities and virtues; and, what was much to her honor, she never for a moment obtruded her own private sorrows upon the ear or heart of her mistress, who, she saw, had a sufficient number of her own to bear.
It was late in the evening when she took farewell of her mistress, and twilight had come on ere she had got within half mile of her father's house.

On crossing a stile which led, by a pathway, to the little hamlet in which her father lived, she was both surprised and startled by perceiving Fergus Reilly approach her.