She asked me yestherday if I thought my father murdhered Sullivan." "Oh! for God's sake, don't talk about it," said Mave, again getting pale; "I can't bear to hear it spoken of." The Grey Stone--on a low ledge of which, nearly concealed from public view, our lovers had been sitting--was, in point of size, a very large rock of irregular size.

After the last words, alluding to the murder, had been uttered, an old man, very neatly but plainly dressed, and bearing a pedlar's pack, came round from behind a projection of it, and approached them.

From his position, it was all but certain that he must have overheard their whole conversation.

Mave, on seeing him, blushed deeply, and Dalton himself felt considerably embarrassed at the idea that the stranger had been listening, and become acquainted with circumstances that were never designed for any other ears but their own.
The old man, on making his appearance, surveyed our lovers from head to foot with a curious and inquisitive eye--a circumstance which, taken in connection with his eaves-dropping, was not at all relished by young Dalton.
"I think you will know us again," said he in no friendly voice.

"How long have you been sittin' behind the corner there ?" he inquired.
"I hope I may know yez agin," replied the pedlar, for he was one; "I was jist long enough behind the corner to hear some of what you were spakin' about last." "An' what was that ?" said Dalton, putting him to the test.
"You were talkin' about the murdher of one Sullivan." "We were," replied Dalton; "but I'll thank you to say nothing further about it; it's disagreeable to both of us--distressin' to both of us." "I don't understand that," said the old pedlar; "how can it be so to either of you, if you're not consarned in it one way or other ?" "We are, then," said Dalton, with warmth; "the man that was killed was this girl's uncle, and the man that was supposed to take his life is my father.