old, to whom she was vainly endeavoring to communicate some of her own natural warmth.  The others, three in number, were grouped together for the same reason; for poor little Atty—­who, though so very young, was his mother’s only support, and hope, and consolation—­sat with an arm about each, in order, as well as he could, to keep off the cold—­the night being stormy and bitter.  Margaret sat rocking herself to and fro, as those do who indulge in sorrow, and crooning for her infant the sweet old air of “Tha ma cullha’s na dhuska me,” or “I am asleep and don’t waken me!”—­a tender but melancholy air, which had something peculiarly touching in it on the occasion in question.

“Ah,” she said, “I am asleep and don’t waken me; if it wasn’t for your sakes, darlins, it’s I that long to be in that sleep that we will never waken from; but sure, lost in misery as we are, what could yez do without me still?”

“What do you mane, mammy?” said Atty; “sure doesn’t everybody that goes to sleep waken out of it?”

[Illustration:  PAGE AM1019—­ There’s a sleep that nobody wakens from]

“No, darlin’; there’s a sleep that nobody wakens from.”

“Dat quare sleep, mammy,” said a little one.  “Oh, but me’s could, mammy; will we eva have blankets?”

The question, though simple, opened up the cheerless, the terrible future to her view.  She closed her eyes, put her hands on them, as if she strove to shut it out, and shivered as much at the apprehension of what was before her, as with the chilly blasts that swept through the windowless house.

“I hope so, dear,” she replied; “for God is good.”

“And will he get us blankets, mammy?”.

“Yes, darlin’, I hope so.”

“Me id rady he’d get us sometin’ to ait fust, mammy; I’m starvin’ wid hungry;” and the poor child began to cry for food.

The disconsolate mother was now assailed by the clamorous outcries of nature’s first want, that of food.  She surveyed her beloved little brood in the feeble light, and saw in all its horror the fearful impress of famine stamped upon their emaciated features, and strangely lighting up their little heavy eyes.  She wrung her hands, and looking up silently to heaven, wept aloud for some minutes.

“Childre,” she said at length, “have patience, poor things, an’ you’ll soon get something to eat.  I sent over Nanny Hart to my sisther’s, an’ when she comes back yell get something;—­so have patience, darlins, till then.”

“But, mother,” continued little Atty, who could not understand her allusion to the sleep from which there is no awakening; “what kind of sleep is it that people never waken from?”

“The sleep that’s in the grave, Atty, dear; death is the sleep I mean.”

“An’ would you wish to die, mother?”

“Only for your sake, Atty, and for the sake of the other darlins, if it was the will of God, I would; and,” she added, with a feeling of indescribable anguish, “what have I now to live for but to see you all about me in misery and sorrow!”