baby was
wrapped in a tattered shawl and cried piteously from hunger, for the
mother had not enough to eat. She was cold, and sick, and in disgrace.
Her husband, too, was ill, and sorely in debt. It was Midwinter.

When Spring came, and the flowers blossomed, and the birds mated, and
warm breezes came whispering softly from the South, and all the earth was
glad, the husband of this child-wife was in his grave, and she was alone.
Alone? No; she carried in her tired arms the hungry babe, and beneath her
heart she felt the faint flutter of another life.

But to be in trouble and in Ireland is not so bad after all, for the
Irish people have great and tender hearts; and even if they have not much
to bestow in a material way, they can give sympathy, and they do.

So the girl was cared for by kind kindred, and on November Thirtieth,
Sixteen Hundred Sixty-seven, at Number Seven, Hoey's Court, Dublin, the
second baby was born.

Only a little way from Hoey's Court is Saint Patrick's Cathedral. On that
November day, as the tones from the clanging chimes fell on the weary
senses of the young mother, there in her darkened room, little did she
think that the puny bantling she held to her breast would yet be the Dean
of the great church whose bells she heard; and how could she anticipate a
whisper coming to her from the far-off future: "Of writing books about
your babe there is no end!"

* * * * *

The man-child was given to an old woman to care for, and
he had the ability, even then, it seems, to win affection. The
foster-mother loved him and she stole him away, carrying him off to
England.

Charity ministered to his needs; charity gave him his education. When
Swift was twenty-one years old he went to see his mother. Her means were
scanty to the point of hardship, but so buoyant was her mind that she
used to declare that she was both rich and happy--and being happy she was
certainly rich. She was a rare woman. Her spirit was independent, her
mind cultivated, her manner gentle and refined, and she was endowed with
a keen sense of humor.

From her, the son derived those qualities which have made him famous. No
man is greater than his mother; but the sons of brave women do not always
make brave men. In one quality Swift was lamentably inferior to his
mother--he did not have her capacity for happiness. He had wit; she had
humor.

We have seen how Swift's father sickened and died. The world was to