ng woman, will you break this business to these ones,
and to my wife, as you can?"

"Oh, I will, I will," she replied; "as well as I can; you did well to
say so," she added, in a low voice to herself; "an' I'll stay here with
your sick family, an' I'll watch an' attend them. Whatever can be done
by the like o' me for them, I'll do. I'll--I'll not lave them--I'll
nurse them--I'll take care of them--I'll beg for them--oh, what would I
not do for them?" and while speaking she bent over young Con's bed, and
clasping her hands, and wringing them several times, she repeated "oh
what wouldn't I do for you!"

"May God bless you, best of girls, whoever you are! Come, now, I'm
ready."

"Ay," said Sarah, running over to him, "that's right--I'll break the
bitter news to them as well as it can be done; come, now."

The old man stood, in the midst of his desolation, with his hat in his
hand, and he looked towards the beds.

"Poor things!" he exclaimed; "what a change has come over you, for what
you wanst, an' that not long since, wor. Never, my darlin' childhre--oh,
never did one harsh or undutiful word come from your lips to your
unhappy father. In my ould age and misery I'm now lavin' you--may be
forever--never, maybe, to see you again in this world; an' oh, my God,
if we are never to meet in the other; if the innocent and the guilty is
never to meet, then this is my last look at you, for everlastin', for
everlastin'! I can't do it," he added, weeping bitterly--"I must take my
lave of them; I must kiss their lips."

Sarah, while he spoke, had uttered two or three convulsive sobs; but she
shed no tears; on the contrary, her eyes were singularly animated and
brilliant. She put her arms about him, and said, in a soothing and
solicitous tone:

"Oh, no, it's all thrue; but if you kiss them, you'll disturb and waken
them; and then, you know, when they see you taken away in this manner,
an' hears what it's for, it may be their death."

"Thrue, achora; thrue: well, I will only look at them, then. Let me keep
my eyes on them for a little; may be they may go first, an' may be I may
go first; the last time, may be, for everlastin', that I'll see them!"

He went over, as he spoke, Sarah still having her hand upon his arm,
as if to intimate her anxiety to keep him under such control as might
prevent him from awakening them; and, standing first over the miserable
bed where Nancy slept, he looked down upon her.

"Ay," said he, while t