e of voice which went directly to his heart,
how it was that they found him in a situation so desolate.

The kind interest implied by the words, and probably a sense of his
utterly destitute state, affected him strongly, and he burst into tears.
The strangers looked at each other, then at him; and if looks could
express sympathy, theirs expressed it.

"My good boy," said the first, "how is it that we find you in a
situation so deplorable and wretched as this? Who are you, or why is it
that you have not a friendly roof I to shelter you?"

"I'm a poor scholar," replied Jemmy, "the son of honest but reduced
parents: I came to this part of the country with the intention of
preparing myself for Maynooth and, if it might plase God, with the hope
of being able to raise them out of their distress."

The strangers looked more earnestly at the boy; sickness had touched his
fine intellectual features into a purity of expression almost ethereal.
His fair skin appeared nearly transparent, and the light of truth and
candor lit up his countenance with a lustre which affliction could not
dim.

The other stranger approached him more nearly, stooped for a moment, and
felt his pulse.

"How long have you been in this country?" he inquired.

"Nearly three years."

"You have been ill of the fever which is so prevalent; how did you come
to be left to the chance of perishing upon the highway?"

"Why, sir, the people were afeard to let me into their houses in
consequence of the faver. I got ill in school, sir, but no boy would
venture to bring me home, an' the master turned me out, to die, I
believe. May God forgive him!"

"Who was your master, my child?"

"The great' Mr.------, sir. If Mr. O'Brien, the curate of the parish,
hadn't been ill himself at the same time, or if Mr. O'Rorke's son,
Thady, hadn't been laid on his back, too, sir, I wouldn't suffer what I
did."

"Has the curate been kind to you?"

"Sir, only for him and the big boys I couldn't stay in the school, on
account of the master's cruelty, particularly since my money was out."

"You are better now--are you not?" said the other gentleman.

"Thank God, sir!--oh, thanks be to the Almighty, I am! I expect to be
able to lave this place to-day or to-morrow."

"And where do you intend to go when you recover?"

The boy himself had not thought of this, and the question came on him so
unexpectedly, that he could only reply--

"Indeed, sir, I don't know."

"Had you,