In this instance it may be remembered, that the aid which the poor girl had come to ask from Skinadre was, as she said, ‘for the ould couple,’ who had, indeed, been for a long time past their last meal, a very common thing during such periods, and were consequently without a morsel of food.  The appearance of her corpse, however, at the house, an event so unexpected, drove, for the time, all feelings of physical want from their minds; but this is a demand which will not be satisfied, no matter by what moral power or calamity it may be opposed, and the wretched couple were now a proof of it.  Their conduct to those who did not understand this, resembled insanity or fatuity more than anything else.  The faces of both were ghastly, and filled with a pale, vague expression of what appeared to be horror, or the dull staring stupor, which results from the fearful conflict of two great opposing passions in the mind—­passions, which in this case were the indomitable ones of hunger and grief.  After dusk, when the candles were lighted, they came into the room where their daughter was laid out, and stood for some time contemplating herself and her infant in silence.  Their visages were white and stony as marble, and their eyes, now dead and glassy, were marked by no appearance of distinct consciousness, or the usual expression of reason.  They had no sooner appeared, than the sympathies of the assembled neighbors were deeply excited, and there was nothing heard for some minutes, but groans, sobbings, and general grief.  Both stood for a short time, and looked with amazement about them.  At length, the old man, taking the hand of his wife in his, said—­

“Kathleen, what’s this?—­what ails me?  I want something.”

“You do, Brian—­you do.  There s Peggy there, and her child, poor thing; see how quiet they are!  Oh, how she loved that child! an’ see her darlin’—­see how she keeps her arm about it, for fear anything! might happen it, or that any one might take it away from her; but that’s her, all over—­she loved everything.”

“Ay,” said the old man, “I know how she loved it; but, somehow, she was ever and always afeard, poor thing, of seemin’ over fond of it before us or before strangers, bekaise you know the poor unhappy—­bekaise you know—­what was I goin’ to say?  Oh, ay, an’ I’ll tell you, although I didn’t let on to her, still I loved the poor little thing myself—­ay, did I. But, ah!  Kathleen, wasn’t she the good an’ the lovin’ daughter?” The old woman raised her head, and looked searchingly around the room.  She seemed uneasy, and gave a ghastly smile, which it was difficult to understand.  She then looked into her husband’s face, after which she turned her eyes upon the countenances of the early dead who lay before her, and going over to them, stooped and looked closely into their still but composed faces, She then put her hand upon her daughter’s forehead, touched her lips with her fingers, carried her hand down along her arm, and felt the pale features of the baby with a look of apparent wonder; and whilst she did this, the old man left the room and passed into the kitchen.