o it, for I like to do good for evil, bad as I am. I'm
strivin' to make up my rent an' to pay an unlucky bill that I have
due to-morrow, and doesn't know where the money's to come from to meet
both."

"Mave Sullivan, achora, what can I--"

Mrs. Dalton, from her position in the room, could not have noticed the
presence of Mave Sullivan, but even had she been placed otherwise,
it would have been somewhat difficult to get a glimpse of the young
creature's face. Deeply did she participate in the sympathy which was
felt for the mother of her mother, and so naturally delicate were her
feelings, that she had drawn up the hood of her cloak, lest the other
might have felt the humiliation to which Mave's presence must have
exposed her by the acknowledgment of her distress. Neither was this all
the gentle and generous girl had to suffer. She experienced, in her own
person, as well as Mrs. Dalton did, the painful sense of degradation
which necessity occasions, by a violation of that hereditary spirit of
decent pride and independence which the people consider as the prestige
of high respect, and which, even while it excites compassion and
sympathy, is looked upon, to a certain extent, as diminished by even a
temporary visitation of poverty. When the meal-man, therefore, addressed
her, she unconsciously threw the hood of her cloak back, and disclosed
to the spectators a face burning with blushes and eyes filled with
tears. The tears, however, were for the distress of Mrs. Dalton and her
family, and the blushes for the painful circumstances which compelled
her at once to witness them, and to expose those which were left under
her own careworn father's roof. Mrs. Dalton, however, on looking round
and perceiving what seemed to be an ebullition merely of natural shame,
went over to her with a calm but mournful manner that amounted almost to
dignity.

"Dear Mave," she said, "there is nothing here to be ashamed of. God
forbid that the struggle of an honest family with poverty should bring
a blot upon either your good name or mine. It does not, nor it will not:
so dry your tears, my darlin' girl; there are better times before us
all, I trust. Darby Skinadre," she added, turning to the miser, "you
are both hard-hearted and ungrateful, or you would remember, in our
distress, the kindness we showed you in yours. If you can cleanse your
conscience from the stain of ingratitude, it must be by a change of
life."

"Whatever stain there may be