r.

The little girl clutched her sister in terror and whispered, "Waken,
Nelly, waken; here's Billy come back!"

Nelly slept soundly on, but the little boy, whose hands were extended
close over the coals, turned and looked toward the bed, it seemed to
her, in fear, and she saw the glare of the embers reflected on his
thin cheek as he turned toward her. He rose and went, on tiptoe,
quickly to the door, in silence, and let himself out as softly as he
had come in.

After that, the little boy was never seen any more by any one of his
kindred.

"Fairy doctors," as the dealers in the preternatural, who in such
cases were called in, are termed, did all that in them lay--but in
vain. Father Tom came down, and tried what holier rites could do, but
equally without result. So little Billy was dead to mother, brother,
and sisters; but no grave received him. Others whom affection
cherished, lay in holy ground, in the old churchyard of Abington, with
headstone to mark the spot over which the survivor might kneel and say
a kind prayer for the peace of the departed soul. But there was no
landmark to show where little Billy was hidden from their loving eyes,
unless it was in the old hill of Lisnavoura, that cast its long shadow
at sunset before the cabin-door; or that, white and filmy in the
moonlight, in later years, would occupy his brother's gaze as he
returned from fair or market, and draw from him a sigh and a prayer
for the little brother he had lost so long ago, and was never to see
again.

STORIES OF LOUGH GUIR

When the present writer was a boy of twelve or thirteen, he first made
the acquaintance of Miss Anne Baily, of Lough Guir, in the county of
Limerick. She and her sister were the last representatives at that
place, of an extremely good old name in the county. They were both
what is termed "old maids," and at that time past sixty. But never
were old ladies more hospitable, lively, and kind, especially to young
people. They were both remarkably agreeable and clever. Like all old
county ladies of their time, they were great genealogists, and could
recount the origin, generations, and intermarriages, of every county
family of note.

These ladies were visited at their house at Lough Guir by Mr. Crofton
Croker; and are, I think, mentioned, by name, in the second series of
his fairy legends; the series in which (probably communicated by Miss
Anne Baily), he recounts some of the picturesque traditions of those