“For God’s love, an’ take her away,” said a neighboring woman, with tears in her eyes; “no one can stand this.”

“No, no,” exclaimed another, “it’s best to let her have her own will; for until they both shed plenty of tears, they won’t get the betther of the shock her unexpected death gave them.”

“Is it thrue that Tom Dalton’s gone mad, too?” asked another; “for it’s reported he is.”

“No; but they say he’s risin’ the counthry to punish Dick o’ the Grange and Darby Skinadre—­the one, he says, for puttin’ his father and themselves out o’ their farm; and the other for bein’ the death, he says, of poor Peggy there and the child; an’ for tak in’, or offerin’ to take, the farm over their heads.”

The old woman then looked around, and, asked—­

“Where is Brian?  Bring him to me—­I want him here.  But wait,” she added, “I will find him myself.”

She immediately followed him into the I kitchen, where the poor old man was found searching every part of the house for food.

“What are you looking for, Brian?” asked another of his neighbors.

“Oh,” he replied, “I am dyin’ wid fair hunger—­wid fair hunger, an’ I want something to ait;” and as he spoke, a spasm of agony came over his face.  “Ah,” he added, “if Alick was livin’ it isn’t this way we’d be, for what can poor Peggy do for us afther her ‘misfortune?’ However, she is a good girl—­a good daughter to us, an’ will make a good wife, too, for all that has happened yet; for sure they wor both young and foolish, an’ Tom is to marry her.  She is now all we have to depend on, poor thing, an’ it wrings my heart to catch her in lonesome places, cryin’ as if her heart would break; for, poor thing, she’s sorry—­sorry for her fault, an’ for the shame an’ sorrow it has brought her to; an’ that’s what makes her pray, too, so often as she does; but God’s good, an’ he’ll forgive her, bekaise she has repented.”

“Brian,” said his wife, “come away till I show you something.”

As she spoke, she led him into the other room.

“There,” she proceeded, “there is our dearest and our best—­food—­oh, I am hungry, too; but I don’t care for that—­sure the mother’s love is stronger than hunger or want either:  but there she is, that was wanst our pride and our delight, an’ what is she now?  She needn’t cry now, the poor heartbroken child; she needn’t cry now; all her sorrow, and all her shame, and all her sin is over.  She’ll hang her head no more, nor her pale cheek won’t get crimson at the sight of any one that knew her before her fall; but for all her sin in that one act, did her heart ever fail to you or me?  Was there ever such love an’ care, an’ respect, as she paid us? an’ we wouldn’t tell her that we forgave her; we wor too hardhearted for that, an’ too wicked to say that one word that she longed for so much—­oh an’ she our only one—­but now—­daughter of our hearts—­now we forgive you when it’s too late—­for, Brian, there they are! there they lie in their last sleep—­the sleep that they will never waken from! an’ it’s well for them, for they’ll waken no more to care an’ throuble, and shame!  There they lie! see how quiet an’ calm they both lie there, the poor broken branch, an’ the little withered flower!”