He then offered up a Pater Noster for the repose of his child’s soul, and another for the kind-hearted and grateful widow Murray, after which he stood to examine the grave with greater accuracy.

There was, in fact, no grave visible.  The little mound, under which lay what was once such a touching image of innocence, beauty, and feeling, had sunk down to the level of the earth about it.  He regretted this, inasmuch as it took away, he thought, part of her individuality.  Still he knew it was the spot wherein she had been buried, and with much of that vivid feeling, and strong figurative language, inseparable from the habits of thought and language of the old Irish families, he delivered the mother’s message to the inanimate dust of her once beautiful and heart-loved child.  He spoke in a broken voice, for even the mention of her name aloud, over the clay that contained her, struck with a fresh burst of sorrow upon his heart.

“Alley,” he exclaimed in Irish, “Alley, nhien machree, your father that loved you more nor he loved any other human crathur, brings a message to you from the mother of your heart, avourneen!  She bid me call to see the spot where you’re lyin’, my buried flower, an’ to tell you that we’re not now, thanks be to God, as we wor whin you lived wid us.  We are well to do now, acushla oge machree, an’ not in hunger, an’ sickness, an’ misery, as we wor whin you suffered them all!  You will love to hear this, pulse of our hearts, an’ to know that, through all we suffered—­an’ bittherly we did suffer since you departed—­we never let you out of our memory.  No, asthore villish, we thought of you, an’ cried afther our poor dead flower, many an’ many’s the time.  An’ she bid me tell you, darlin’ of my heart, that we feel:  nothin’ now so much as that you are not wid us to share our comfort an’ our happiness.  Oh, what wouldn’t the mother give to have you back wid her; but it can’t be—­an’ what wouldn’t I give to have you before my eyes agin, in health an’ in life—­but it can’t be.  The lovin’ mother sent this message to you, Alley.  Take it from her; she bid me tell you that we are well an’ happy; our name is pure, and, like yourself, widout spot or stain.  Won’t you pray for us before God, an’ get him an’ his blessed Mother to look on us wid favor an’ compassion?  Farewell, Alley asthore!  May you slelp in peace, an’ rest on the breast of your great Father in Heaven, until we all meet in happiness together.  It’s your father that’s spakin’ to you, our lost flower; an’ the hand that often smoothed your goolden head is now upon your grave.”

He wiped his eyes as he concluded, and after lifting a little of the clay from her grave, he tied it carefully up, and put it into his pocket.