increases as they go on.  Every seventh son knows more than thim that wint before him till it comes to the last, and he knows more than thim all.  There were six seventh sons before me, so that I’m the last; for it was never known since the world began that ever more than seven afther one another had the gift of prophecy in the same family.  That’s the raison, you see, that I have no sons—­the knowledge ends wid me.”

“It’s very strange,” replied Sullivan, “an’ not to be accounted for by any one but God—­glory be to his name!”

“It is strange—­an’ when I find that I’m goin’ to foretell any thing that’s bad or unlucky, I feel great pain or uneasiness in my mind—­but on the other hand, when I am to prophesy what’s good, I get quite light-hearted and aisy—­I’m all happiness.  An’ that’s the way I feel now, an’ has felt for the last day or two.”

“I wish to God, Donnel,” said Mrs. Sullivan, “that you could prophesize something good for us.”

“Or,” continued her charitable and benevolent husband, “for the thousands of poor creatures that wants it more still than we do—­sure it’s thankful to the Almighty we ought to be—­an’ is, I hope—­that this woful sickness hasn’t come upon us yet.  Even Condy Dalton an’ his family—­ay, God be praised for givin’ me the heart to do it—­I can forgive him and them.”

“Don’t say them, Jerry ahagur,” observed his wife, “we never had any bad feelin’ against them.”

“Well, well,” continued the husband, “I can forgive him an’ all o’ them now—­for God help them, they’re in a state of most heart-breakin’ distitution, livin’ only upon the bits that the poor starvin’ neighbors is able to crib from their own hungry mouths for them!” And here the tears—­the tears that did honor not only to him, but to human nature and his country—­rolled slowly down his emaciated cheeks, for the deep distress to which the man that he believed to be the murdherer of his brother had been.

“Indeed, Donnel,” said Mrs. Sullivan, “it would be a hard an’ uncharitable heart that wouldn’t relent if it knew what they are suffering.  Young Con is jist risin’ out of the faver that was in the family, and it would wring your—­”

A glance at Mave occasioned her to pause.  The gentle girl, upon whom the Prophet had kept his eye during the whole conversation, had been reflecting, in her wasted but beautiful features, both the delicacy and depth of the sympathy that had been expressed for the unhappy Daltons.  Sometimes she became pale as ashes, and again her complexion assumed the subdued hue of the wild rose; for—­alas that we must say it—­sorrow and suffering—­in other words, want, in its almost severest form, had thrown its melancholy hue over the richness of her blush—­which, on this occasion, borrowed a delicate grace from distress itself.  Such, indeed, was her beauty, and so gently and serenely did her virtues shine through it, that it mattered not to what condition of calamity they were subjected; in