Her voice and strength were, since the last change that Mave observed, both rapidly sinking, and her mother, anxious, if possible, to have her forgiveness, again approached her and said: 

“Dear Sarah you are angry with me.  Oh! forgive me—­am I not your mother?”

The girl’s resentments, however, had all passed, and the business of her life, and its functions, she now felt were all over—­she said so—­

“It’s all over, at last now, mother,” she replied—­“I have no anger now—­come and kiss me.  Whatever you have done, you are still my mother.  Bless me—­bless your daughter Sarah, I have nothing now in my heart but love for everybody.  Tell Nelly, dear Mave, that Sarah forgave her, an’ hoped that she’d forgive Sarah.  Mave, I trust that you an’ he will be happy—­that’s my last wish, an’ tell him so.  Mave, there’s sweet faces about me, sich as I seen in the shed; they’re smilin’ upon me—­smilin’ upon Sarah—­upon poor, hasty Sarah McGowan—­that would have loved every one.  Mave, think of me sometimes—­an’ let him, when he thinks of the wild girl that loved him, look upon you, dearest Mave, an’ love you, if possible, better for her sake.  These sweet faces are about me again.  Father, I’ll be before you—­die—­die like a man.”

While uttering these last few sentences, which were spoken with great difficulty, she began to pull the bedclothes about with her hands, and whilst uttering the last word, her beautiful hand was slightly clenched, as if helping out a sentiment so completely in accordance with her brave spirit.  These motions, however, ceased suddenly—­she heaved a deep sigh, and the troubled spirit of the kind, the generous, the erring, but affectionate Sarah M’Gowan—­as we shall call her still—­passed away to another, and, we trust, a better life.  The storms of her heart and brain were at rest forever.

Thus perished in early life one of those creatures, that sometimes seem as if they were placed by mistake in a wrong sphere of existence.  It is impossible to say to what a height of moral grandeur and true greatness, culture and education might have elevated, her, or to say with what brilliancy her virtues might have shone, had heart and affections been properly cultivated.  Like some beautiful and luxuriant flower, however, she was permitted to run into wildness and disorder for want of a guiding hand; but no want, no absence of training, could ever destroy its natural delicacy, nor prevent its fragrance from smelling sweet, even in the neglected situation where it was left to pine and die.

There is little now to be added.  “Time, the consoler,” passes not in vain even over the abodes of wretchedness and misery.  The sufferings of that year of famine we have endeavored to bring before those who may have the power in their hands of assuaging the similar horrors which are likely to visit this.  The pictures we have given are not exaggerated, but drawn from memory and the terrible realities of 1817.