ou mean Father Letheby's trouble, Nell?"

"Indeed, 'n' I do,--what else? Oh! wirra, wirra! to hear that me poor
gintleman was gone to the cowld gaol, where he is lying on the stone
flure, and nothing but the black bread and the sour wather."

Whilst Nell was uttering this lonely threnody, she was dragging out of
the recesses of her bosom what appeared to be a red rag. This she placed
on the table, whilst I watched her with interest. She then commenced to
unroll this mummy, taking off layer after layer of rags, until she came
to a crumpled piece of brown paper, all the time muttering her Jeremiad
over her poor priest. Well, all things come to an end; and so did the
evolutions of that singular purse. This last wrapper was unfolded, and
there lay before me a pile of crumpled banknotes, a pile of sovereigns,
and a handful of silver.

"'T isn't much, your reverence, but it is all I have. Take it and give
it to that good gintleman, or thim who are houlding him, and sind him
back to us agin."

"'T is a big sum of money, Nell, which a poor woman like you could hardly
afford to give--"

"If it were tin millions times as much, your reverence, I'd give it to
him, my darlin' gintleman. Sure, an' 't was he came to me up on that
lonesome hill in all the rain and cowld of last winter; and 't was he
said to me, 'Me poor woman, how do you live at all! And where's the
kittle?' sez he; but sure, I had no kittle; but he took up a black burnt
tin, and filled it with wather, and put the grain of tay in it, and
brought it over to me; and thin he put his strong arm under my pillow,
and lifted me up, and 'Come, me poor woman,' sez he, 'you must be wake
from fastin'; take this; and thin he wint around like a 'uman and set
things to rights; and I watchin' him and blessin' him all the time in
_my_ heart of hearts; and now to think of him without bite or
sup;--wisha, tell me, your reverence," she said, abruptly changing her
subject, "how much was it? Sure, I thought there was always a dacent
living for our priests at Kilronan. But the times are bad, and the
people are quare."

It needed all my eloquence and repeated asseverations to persuade her
that Father Letheby was not gone to gaol as yet, and most probably would
not go. And it was not disappointment, but a sense of personal injury
and insult, that overshadowed her fine old face as I gathered up her
money and returned it to her. She went back to her lonely cabin in
misery.

When Father