against the heat of which, I suppose, like Kate's cloak, it was worn as a defence, stepped into the little ditch that ran along the hedge under which she sat, and stooping his face close to her's, succeeded in pulling up her head, and obtaining a glimpse of it.

‘In troth, then, it's a shame for you, and sin too, to be making away with yourself in such a manner; its killed in no time you'll be if you take on so; and to think of your going your lone too, when there's not a neighbour in the country but would be proud to go with you.'

The voice of kindness never sounds rude to the unhappy. Some tears fell from Kate's closed eyes.

Ah! then, will you rouse yourself, woman?' her exhorting friend continued, shaking her by the shoulder with energy sufficient to give effect to his words. 'Will you rouse yourself, and not be taking on so, maybe just about nothing at all after all; and its ashamed you ought to be to be treating yourself in such a manner.'

'I can't go on, Morrow,' said Kate, lifting the end of her apron to her eyes, which even Morrow had skill enough in such cases to interpret as a favourable symptom.

I can't go on; my heart is quite gone; there's a pain about it and in my head, and it's better to leave me just to die where I am.'

'The never a one of myself will do that, Kate, a hagur; so just get up like a brave woman, and sit in the cart there, and I'll have you at home with your granny, quiet and easy, in no time.'

Desponding as she was, Kate was unable to resist the idea of being at home, quiet and easy;' the words sounded so soothingly, they had more effect

than all Morrow's energies. She got into the cart, but the motion and noise soon quite distracted her : she lay down in it, and Morrow, anxious to perform his promise, set off at full speed.

It made me shudder when I fancied the poor sufferer, under all the influence of approaching fever, being hurried along with noise and roughness, and a velocity which shewed the driver's desire to have her at home again with her own people.' The motion of the cart, as it rumbled on over hill and hollow, rough and smooth, with equal carelessness and speed, aggravated the pain of her head to a degree that was beyond endurance, and after several attempts to make her voice heard by its indefatigable driver, she sank down and became insensible, or nearly so, to further suffering.

She did not speak when they lifted her out; and when she was laid on her bed, with her mouth partly open and eyeballs strained from pain and excitement, the people, with whom the house was speedily 'filled, surrounded it, so as to exclude the entrance of a breath of air from the poor girl they believed to be dying; their cries and lamentations seemed to have no effect; but the moans of her grandmother, who had been out on her arrival, and who, unamiable as she was, could not help loving such a girl as Kate, produced some sign of sensibility, and as the case did not then appear so hopeless, the usual restorative was immediately prescribed, and one of the assembly was despatched with a vial to the nearest house where a drop of spirits for a dying creature' could be procured. This was speedily poured down her throat, and in such a state as hers soon produced the consequences that might be expected; in a few hours

Kate was raving of prisons, and judges, and executions.

I believe that among the poor of Ireland, in cases of fever, the patient is often best, however barbarous it may seem to say so, when left houseless and friendless. Ignorance or mistaken kindness aggravate the disease, which is better left to nature. The cabin where a number of persons are huddled together is infected, the air within grows malignant, and that from without is excluded, through the fear of 'driving the cold to the creature's heart; ' while with a view to drive it from it, whisky is frequently administered, until the heart they would warm becomes cold for ever.

I remember, years ago, when I was little more than a child, a fearful typhus fever was very prevalent in Ireland; and a young man in rather respectable circumstances, who with his mother was passing through our part of the country, was seized with it. As soon as the nature of the disease became apparent, the people of the house, (according to the above stated theory, I might say charitably,) put him out, and no one else would take him in.

He got as far as an extensive wood which partly surrounded our house, where he lay down on a bed of leaves his mother heaped for him, and for six weeks the earth was his pillow and his covering the sky.

His fever at the commencement was of the most violent kind, and in the paroxysms of delirium he used to run through the wood, to our great terror; indeed we were kept prisoners in the house most of the time. No one would venture near him, no one but his mother: a mother seldom forsakes. We used to leave drink in his vicinity, which this worn

and spectre-like woman would come for, while we looked at her from a considerable distance, as at some fearful thing: yet there, lying out in the open air, without the means of procuring anything, injurious or otherwise, this patient of nature recovered. Jars of broth used then to be left to supply the place of the cooling drinks; and I well remember with what thrilling sensations of almost horror, when I had one day left a plate of meat and some drink for the poor mother in the usual place, I beheld the cadaverous face and emaciated figure of the 'poor man in the wood' stealing forward to take them in her stead, looking as like a risen tenant of the tombs as an inhabitant of earth.

He made signs to dispel my fears, and to express to me that his poor mother now occupied the bed she heaped for him; and day after day he came to take away her drinks, and crawl back to her, scarcely able to carry them. One day they remained untouched he was seen hanging over the corpse of her who had tended him as none other would-as none other could have done; who had remained when all save his God had forsaken, and who had now perhaps been accorded the prayer of David, and died for her son. Her constitution, weakened by age and previous fatigue and suffering, sunk under the disease from which he recovered.

But now to return to my story.

It was the day before that whose setting sun was to be the last poor Tennisson was permitted to see, that Nanny and I once more entered the house where Kate Connolly still lay excessively ill.

The door of her room was open, and we were not a little surprised, as well as alarmed, on seeing the

only other occupant of the room. It was a man, whose haggard looks and dress conveyed such uneasy sensations as were not lessened by observing the aspect with which he regarded the sick girl.

Kate's eyes were closed. We had, in the plenitude of our assumed medical authority, dispensed with her wearing the thick cap which her grandmother had bound on her burning head with a thick cotton handkerchief; her hair was turned back from the temples, where the blue veins visibly throbbed with the same fever that flushed her thin and altered cheeks.

The man stood near to the door, his arm resting on a high chest, and his head bent upon his hand, on the knuckles of which his teeth appeared to press with energy sufficient to sink them in the flesh, while his eyes glared strangely on the spectacle before him.

Nanny caught my arm, pale as death and overcome with terror; but at the moment, and before our presence was perceived, a step approached the outer door, and Peggy Morrow came in, and set down a pitcher of water she had been fetching.

Well, then, Brian O'Toole, what brings you here?' she said, turning round to him with a look of surprise and sternness; and even the action of her arms, as they fell by her sides, spoke a fearlessness that reassured us. 'The holy cross be about us,' she added, making its sign on her heart; are you coming like an evil spirit among us before your time?'

Astonished at her boldness, we looked apprehensively at the man, who, changing his attitude, attempted to move towards her, but was unable, early as the hour was, from intoxication.