er condition. "Only think of poor lame Phelim,
Biddy Dillon's little boy."

"What is the matter with him?" asked her mother.

"Have you not seen him? He is often in the back-yard when Biddy comes
to wash in the kitchen. I've watched him often. I think it was before
he came to this country--but I'm not sure--that a large stone, falling
from a wall, so mangled his poor limbs that one of them had to be cut
off. I never see him limping about on his crutches while Biddy is
washing without thanking God for my happier fate."

"Why, Annie, it is not probable that he suffers one-half as much as
you do."

"As much _pain_, do you mean, mamma?"

"Yes."

"I wasn't thinking of that. They are very poor; and if he lives to be
a man, how can he earn the comforts of life? I need have no care on
that account."

"I daresay he has none. There are several trades that he might learn
which require a sitting posture; he might be a shoemaker, for
instance. Do not fret on his account, Annie."

"It seems to me, mamma," replied Annie, with a thoughtful air, "that
his only prospect for the future is to be pushed about here and there
in the crowd, until at last he finds a refuge in the grave."

"What foolish fancies!" said Mrs. Lee, rising, as a noise in the yard
below attracted her to the window. "We know nothing about the future,
and it is not quite right to make ourselves sad about it. It is hardly
like your usual trust in God, to be thus imagining trouble. There's a
little lame boy in the yard, who, I suppose, is Phelim; he seems happy
enough. Hark! don't you hear him sing? He is sitting on the bench
behind the clothes-frame, and his mother is hanging out the clothes to
dry. Don't you hear her laugh at what he is singing?"

"What is it, mamma? Can you hear the words?" asked Annie, brightening
up, and raising herself on her elbow as she lay on her low couch.

"I hear them very well; but his Irish gibberish is as Greek to me. All
that I can make out is what seems to be the chorus:

"'O Ireland, green Ireland,
Swate gem o' the sae!'"

"Mamma," said Annie, after listening with smiling interest a while,
"it troubles me very often because Phelim knows nothing about our
Saviour. He has a sister, two years older than I am, who cannot read.
She never went to school; and none of the family can read a word."

"How did you learn this?"

"From Phelim. I speak to him sometimes when he plays under the
window."

"Well, I don't k