Fenians, of course, to an eagerness for battle or donations of pence. The "relics" must not be supposed those of saints, for the Fenians have been denounced by the Catholic Church, and in return they denounced that Church. The duty on these Irish antiquities amounted to the vast sum of 2501. for genuine antiques, so we are told. Perhaps the skull of an old King Murtogh, who, a rare thing among the kings of Ireland, actually died in his bed A.D. 493; and the thumb of Cougal Cionmaghair, who expired suddenly for persecuting St. Patrick; or the toe of King Connor, who died of patriotism A.D. 837, and similar souvenirs of "ould Ireland's" grandeur. Money was to be raised upon these curiosities, no doubt, for assisting in the conquest of the island. In the meanwhile, a special guard was to be placed over the precious deposit-so precious, that it was reported the English custom-house officials had snubbed the exporter when putting them on board, as if he would have cared a farthing about the export of the os coccygis of King Lughaidh, or the tibia of the royal Ceallach drowned in a bog.

The next step of the Fenians was to set the Catholic Church at defiance, on account of the bishop's remonstrance. They flung his address to them under the table, defying the Pope in their glorious enthusiasm, and went to work their own way.

Since that time, in 1864, the newspapers have generally copied the proceedings of these anathematisers of England from the American papers. Some of the latter, edited by Irishmen, work hard for the cause about which they so blunder and bluster. The English convict, Mitchel, edited a paper for the slave interest lately in the South. Whether he has anything to do with the Fenian press, we are not aware. The foregoing was the state of the Fenians at the commencement of the last year.

We must now carry the reader back to the foundation of the Fenian body to show that its scheme is a miserable imitation of a secret society got up by the slaveholders in the late war to embarrass the North at the commencement of the late Southern rebellion. The body in question took the form of a secret society, called the "Knights of the Golden Circle." It was reported upon by Judge Holt to the Northern government as being first developed in 1862 in the North-Western States. We have good reason to believe it began to be formed a year earlier. It was probably in 1862 that it first became fully known to the Northern government, and became the Fenian model. Its mode of action was that of the present Fenians in Ireland to the letter, evidently copied especially in the mode of seducing the soldiery from their allegiance..

It was in February, 1862, that we received a letter from an individual in a large city of the Western States of America, with which we had long communicated. He gave us an account of the formation by friends of the Southern slaveholders in the North of a society called the "Knights of the Golden Circle." He had been asked to enrol himself, and indignantly refused. He spoke of such a formation more than a year before Judge Holt reported its existence to his government. It is clear, therefore, that it must have been formed as early as 1860 or 1861. Branches of this society took different names. Oaths of secresy were administered, to which we will presently allude, because it is clear that the Fenian organisation is an imitation of the Knights of the Golden Circle, and commenced no great while after it. The society was designed to

operate in Ireland, as the knights were to act for the South in the Northern States. Not that they had the remotest connexion as to their objects, but that the American society was original in design, the American-Irish an imitation.

The communication we received in February, 1862, stated that a public dinner had been given by his countrymen to an Irishman upon the occasion of his leaving America for Ireland as an emissary to act in organising a rising in Ireland against the British government. It mentioned an English friend well known to ourselves, who had been invited to join the society-the Society of the Knights against the Union—but refused flatly to have anything to do with it, and again subsequently with the Irish imitation society to incite the people in Ireland against the English government. The letter closed with words to this effect: "I would make the authorities at home acquainted with the intention of this emissary. His name is * * He has made no secret of his objects here, nor do his countrymen."

In consequence, knowing Lord Palmerston personally, we transmitted to him the name of the emissary, the city, place of meeting, and object. His lordship observed that Ireland was quite peaceable, as far as the government knew. Neither his lordship nor the public here had then heard of the Knights, or their imitators the Fenians, nor had the United States government, at least as far as it chose to let the public know. It was not until the beginning of 1864 that Judge Holt, in the Union, publicly revealed the Southern secret organisations which the renegade Irish took for their model in Fenianism. The discoveries made by the Union government, and published in relation to the Knights, their branch societies, and objects, may enable the reader to compare the disclosures of the means and objects of the friends of the slaveholders in the north or north-west of the Union, with the modes and objects of the Fenians, as far as the latter have been disclosed in the late arrests in Ireland.

When a member was introduced he was sworn into a "blind" obedience to his superiors of the order. The oath that bound him was to supersede any other oath past or future. If examined, members were to give no information, and to deny that they knew even the existence of such a society. They had secret signs of recognition for personal security in action, when armed for treasonable purposes. The member was also sworn to uphold the practices of slavery, state sovereignty, the right of secession, and of armed resistance to existing authority.

The more immediate objects, and particularly applicable to Fenianism, were to aid soldiers in deserting, spreading disaffection among and protecting them, and here the success of the Knights was considerable at the beginning of 1863. The desertions thus effected were very numerous. Many men carried off their arms and accoutrements and were paid for them. Disloyal and treasonable papers were published. Secret intelligence was supplied to the enemy, and Southern spies protected by the order. Intelligence was rapidly conveyed to the enemy; telegraphoffices, steam-boats, and similar establishments, had all spies of the order in some part of them. Females were enrolled to carry percussion-caps and powder to the enemy; these were concealed on their persons. Desertions to the extent of some thousands in all were effected by the order. Telegraph-wires were cut when messages of moment were wanted

to be conveyed, and railroads injured to delay or stop traffic. All was but too successful till detected. It is not requisite to go further into particulars to prove that it is clear that the Fenian combination was, or rather is, as close an imitation of its model as it well can be. We find a feature in the seduction of the soldiery already attempted in Ireland, and the system of oaths, pro or con., resorted to, for the same disloyal purposes.

We have no fear that success can attend the foolish braggadocio and big talk of the Fenians. The lack of judgment in the native Irish, and their headlong impetuosity, are remarkable. They do not calculate. None will shut their eyes and run their heads against a stone wall with such alacrity, only excite them for the purpose. The educated inhabitants of the sister kingdom, the respectable part, the priesthood and people of fortune, have no share in this foolish crusade. The Fenians hurled defiance at the Pope himself at Chicago, and in Ireland repeated it. Its leaders, in the judgment of the Americans, are duping their sanguine and ignorant countrymen for their own selfish ends. If not, they are the greatest fools that ever walked the earth without keepers; for they are playing the game of goose motiveless.

As we have said before, this great and powerful nation will not be so easily bullied as the credulous ones, enrolled by their countrymen in the United States, have been led to believe. There is every desire in the home government to benefit Ireland as far as possible. She must learn to do her own part in the matter as well. Peace is essential to her prosperity-intestine peace. It was but last summer that a fine steamer from New York, on board of which were some Americans and others, upon making the shore of Ireland pretty closely, exclaimed to a friend of ours on board, a passenger like themselves,

"How beautiful this country looks, and well cultivated too! This cannot be the miserable land we heard of in America, from which the inhabitants are all running away?"

When we heard the remark, we thought how full of truth it was. Had the island the full benefit of what its inhabitants have it in their own power to do in its behalf, there would be few northern countries more envied. As to England's fear of the Fenians, who, we suspect, are very like Falstaff's buckram men, some fifty thousand grown out of a fifth part, they could not do England so much mischief as they desire, were they ten times as blustering. They will do well to remember also, at least those born under the British Crown, that they owe it allegiance, and that they have no claim, if found in these islands, coming over here with a hostile intent, to be spared more than any other traitors, who may be taken under a breach of the laws in committing the extreme of criminal offences. We repeat it, that this great and powerful nation has nothing to fear from all this Fenian bluster. A just punishment will inevitably overtake rebellion in its first acts of aggression. Not to perceive this, shows either a want of understanding in this self-sufficient body of blusterers, or a design to use the more credulous and simple of their countrymen as Jeremy Diddler in the farce used his dupes. Such is the openly expressed opinion, too, of the Yankees, whom the Fenians amuse with their vapourings.

CYRUS REDDING.

LILIAN'S INHERITANCE.

BY MRS. WILLIAM MURRAY.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SPY IN THE GARDEN.

WHATEVER might be the import of the threat with which Dr. Butler menaced Dolores on the Friday evening when he visited her in her own apartments, it had at least the effect of keeping her quiet and entirely out of sight for some days; and Lilian spoke the truth in remarking "that no one had seen Dolores."

With the exception of a daily visit to draw water from a spring in the inner court-yard, she had never been out, and was far too indignant to speak to any of the servants, after their public insults on the day of the Water-Frolic.

She discovered also, by some means, that Dr. Butler was staying in the house; and this knowledge rendered her still more prudent and cautious.

On the Tuesday afternoon, when she went to draw water as usual, soon after the family had returned from the Paseo, she heard one groom say to the other in Spanish, whilst locking the door of the coach-house, "We shall not want this carriage to-morrow, that's certain!"

"Why not?" asked Dolores, inquisitively, surprised out of her indignation. "What's going to be done to-morrow?"

"Just you mind your own business, ma'am," said our friend John, the footman, who was standing near, and saw Dolores address the grooms; "and if anybody haxes you what's going to be done to-morrow, you can tell 'em you don't know. And as for you scamps," he added, turning to the Mexicans, "if you tell that old witch what's going on, I'll 'eave a brick at you. Answer her questions at your peril, for my hi is on you ! Come, ma'am, circumnavigate them peg-legs of yours up your own staircase, and don't be himpident."

Dolores, in high indignation, mounted her steps, banging the door after her. Then, with flashing eyes and hatred in her heart, she sat down and ruminated.

"There's something going on out of the usual way-something they don't wish me to know. Dr. Butler has not been here for nothing; but I'll find it out, in spite of them all! I'll go down when they are at dinner to-night. I'll hide in the garden, and watch."

Accordingly, about half-past six, when she knew the family would be dining, she walked stealthily along into the garden, wrapped in a large black mantle.

But she watched and waited until her patience was well-nigh exhausted, for every door and window was closed and barred, and there was not a single light visible in any part of the house.

At last there came that violent ringing at the outer gates, and the summons for Dr. Butler. She heard his voice ordering his horse to be

saddled immediately, and then she heard him gallop away with the messenger who came for him, at full speed towards Mexico.

"Que fortuna !" she muttered. "What a blessing! he is out of the way for a couple of hours, at any rate!"

Still she watched and waited for another half-hour; but all was still, save the loud chirping of the ground crickets and the rich song of the mocking-bird. At last, just as she was turning her steps to her own rooms, weary with her useless watching, the library window looking into the garden was suddenly flung wide open, and she saw Mr. Trevanion gazing out into the night.

But his face was of such a ghastly whiteness that even Dolores was shocked with the change in these past few days.

"Valgame Dios! what can be the matter with him?" she thought. "I never saw a man so altered in my life!"

She was standing almost directly opposite the library, under the shade of some large trees, and her clothes being black, rendered her figure undistinguishable.

She watched him closely, for the moonbeams were shining full upon him, and there was a feeling nearly akin to pity in the breast of that stern woman, as she noted the deep lines and furrows in his handsome face, and the greyness of his hair.

"Poor man!" she thought; "it has been a hard struggle for him! If that proud English girl were out of the way I'd never vex him more, for he is a good man and a kind one; but as for her, with her great staring eyes and her foreign pride, I hate her! I could tread her under my feet, and spit at her! I could-ay, I could murder her!"

As these vindictive thoughts passed through her mind she saw the white figure of the girl whom she hated enter the library-she saw her pause, irresolute, and then gently touch Mr. Trevanion, to rouse him from his reverie-she saw him start, and turn; and then, alas! in a few moments she saw that Maud was clasped in his arms!

She

Furious with anger, jealousy, and hatred, the passion of the Mexican knew no bounds; all the evil in her nature was lashed into rage. looked like a crouching cat; like a stealthy tigress, ready to spring.

She saw Maurice kiss Maud Slingsby, and take her on his knee-she saw the girl's white arms round her lover's neck, and swearing a vindictive oath she clenched her hands, hissing forth these words:

"By the God above me, I'll have her blood this very night! Ay! I'll kill her now, in her lover's arms !”

Quick as thought she glided along through the shady walks, back again to her own chamber. The court-yard was still as death in the bright moonlight, for the domestics were all assembled together for a farewell carouse in the servants' hall, given by John the footman, in honour of Manuela, who was leaving for England with her young mistress in the early morning.

None of them saw the dark shadowy form gliding up the steps, at the top of which, pressing her finger on the fourteenth nail of the green-baize door, she noiselessly entered.

Taking a small pocket-pistol from its case, she loaded it, retracing her steps to the garden as stealthily as she came.

But in her haste and excitement she made one fatal mistake! She