PERHAPS you could tell me who that pale beauty is? I have seen her once before.” “Seen her, and not know her! She is the youngest daughter of John Philpot Curran.”

In the lovely valley of Glendalough, County of Wicklow, the foregoing question was asked by a gentleman, and responded to by Miss Lambart, the true friend of the ill-fated Sarah Curran, the betrothed of Robert Emmet.

A “pale beauty.” All writers who have mentioned Sarah Curran have concurred in their praise of her grace and beauty; nevertheless, not one has given any more definite description of her personal attractions. Moreover, there is, unfortunately, no authentic likeness of her extant, so that the reader must finish the portrait as imagination suggests.

“She is kind, she is lovely, and Heaven only knows how good!” exclaimed Robert Emmet, in all the fervour of his enthusiastic love and patriotism. “I must make myself worthy of the woman of my choice, and the glory which sheds its lustre on the husband shall reflect its splendour on the wife!”

Poor Robert Emmet! He gave utterance to these impassioned words but a few weeks before his untimely death. Of all the good men, bad men, and great men engaged in national conspiracies in Ireland, not one has acquired by his patriotism or his death the fame which, from the hour of his rebellion, surrounded and seemed to halo the name of Robert Emmet.