ord: bring her here," he
added, "tell her I'm ready now to forgive her all; for she, it's she
that was the forgivin' creature herself; tell her I'm ready now to
forgive her all, an' to give her my blessin' wanst more."

It was utterly impossible to hear this language from the stunned and
heart-broken father, and to contemplate the fair and lifeless form
of the unhappy young creature as she lay stretched before him in the
peaceful stillness of death, without being moved even to tears. There
were, indeed, few dry eyes in the house as he spoke.

"Oh, Brian dear," said her weeping mother, "we helped ourselves to break
her heart, as well as the rest. We wouldn't forgive her; we wouldn't
say the word, although her heart was breakin' bekaise we did not. Oh,
Peggy," she commenced in Irish, "oh, our daughter--girl of the one
fault! the kind, the affectionate, and the dutiful child, to what corner
of the world will your father an' myself turn now that you're gone from
us? You asked us often an' often to forgive you, an' we would not.
You said you were sorry, in the sight of God an' of man, for your
fault--that your heart was sore, an' that you felt our forgiveness
would bring you consolation; but we would not. Ould man," she exclaimed
abruptly, turning to her husband, "why didn't you forgive our only
daughter? Why, I say, didn't you forgive her her one fault--you wicked
ould man, why didn't you forgive her?"

"Oh, Kathleen, I'll die," he replied, mournfully, "I'll die if I don't
get something to ait. Is there no food? Didn't Peggy go to thry Darby
Skinadre, an' she hoped, she said, that she'd bring us relief; an' so
she went upon our promise to forgive her when she'd come back wid it."

"I wish, indeed, I had a drop o' gruel or something myself," replied his
wife, now reminded of her famished state by his words.

At this moment, however, relief, so far as food was concerned, did
come. The compassionate neighbors began, one by one, to return each
with whatever could be spared from their own necessities, so that in
the course of a little time this desolate old couple were supplied with
provisions sufficient to meet the demands of a week or fortnight.

It is not our intention to describe, or rather to attempt to describe,
the sorrow of Brian Murtagh and his wife, as soon as a moderate meal
of food had awakened them, as it were, from the heavy and stupid frenzy
into which the shock of their unhappy daughter's death, joined to th