“I will,” said Peter, in a broken voice; “I’ll stay nowhere else.”

“An’I’ll kneel at the bed-side,” said the daughter.  “She was the kind mother to me, and to us all; but to me in particular.  ’Twas with me she took her choice to live, when they war all striving for her.  Oh,” said she, taking her mother’s hand between hers, and kneeling-down to kiss it, “a Vahr dheelish! (* sweet mother) did we ever think to see you departing from us this way! snapped away without a minute’s warning!  If it was a long-sickness, that you’d be calm and sinsible in, but to be hurried away into eternity, and your mind dark!  Oh, Vhar dheelish, my heart is broke to see you this way!”

“Be calm,” said the priest; “be quiet till I open the Rosary.”

He then offered up the usual prayers which precede its repetition, and after having concluded them, commenced what is properly called the Rosary itself, which consists of fifteen Decades, each Decade containing the Hail Mary repeated ten times, and the Lord’s Prayer once.  In this manner the Decade goes round from one to another, until, as we have said above, it is repeated fifteen times; or, in all, the Ave Maria’s one hundred and sixty-five times, without variation.  From the indistinct utterance, elevated voice, and rapid manner in which it is pronounced, it certainly has a wild effect, and is more strongly impressed with the character of a mystic rite, or incantation, than with any other religious ceremony with which we could compare it.

“When the priest had repeated the first part, he paused for the response:  neither the husband nor daughter, however, could find utterance.

“Denis,” said he, to his nephew, “do you take up the next.”

His nephew complied; and with much difficulty Peter and his daughter were able to join in it, repeating here and there a word or two, as well as their grief and sobbings would permit them.

The heart must indeed have been an unfeeling one, to which a scene like this would not have been deeply touching and impressive.  The poor dying woman reclined with her head upon her husband’s bosom; the daughter knelt at the bed-side, with her mother’s hand pressed against her lips, she herself convulsed with sorrow—­the priest was in the attitude of earnest supplication, having the stole about his neck, his face and arms raised towards heaven—­the son-in-law was bent over a chair, with his face buried in his hands.  Nothing could exceed the deep, the powerful expression of entreaty, which marked every tone and motion of the parties, especially those of the husband and daughter.  They poured an energy into the few words which they found voice to utter, and displayed such a concentration of the faculties of the soul in their wild unregulated attitudes, and streaming, upturned eyes, as would seem to imply that their own salvation depended upon that of the beloved object before them.  Their words, too, were accompanied by such expressive tokens of their attachment to her,