hen he
returned a step or two towards the door; and Mary, having noticed this,
went to him, and throwing her arms once more about his neck, exclaimed:

"Oh! Father, darlin' an' is it come to this? Oh, did we ever complain or
grumble about all we suffered, while we had you wid us? no, we wouldn't.
What was our sufferins, father, dear--nothing. But, oh, nothing ever
broke our hearts, or troubled us, but to see you in sich sorrow."

"It's thrue, Mary darlin'; you wor all--all a blessin' to me; but I feel,
threasure of my heart, that my sorrows an' my cares will soon be over.
It's about Tom I come back. Och, sure I didn't care what he or we might
suffer, if it had plased God to lave him in his senses; but maybe now
he's happier than we are. Tell him--if he can understand it, or when he
does understand it--that I lave my blessin' and God's blessin' with him
for evermore--for evermore: an' with you all; an' with you, too, young
woman, for evermore, amen! And now come; I submit myself to the will of
my marciful Saviour."

He looked up to heaven as he spoke, his two hands raised aloft; after
which he covered his venerable head, and, with this pious and noble
instance of resignation, did the affectionate old man proceed, as well
as his feeble limbs could support him, to the county prison, accompanied
by his pious and truly Christian wife.

As the men were about to go, he who had addressed Sarah so rudely,
approached her with as much regret on his face as its hardened and
habitual indifference to human misery could express, and said, tapping
her on the shoulder:

"I was rather rough to you, jist now, my purty girl--to' be jabers, it'
is you that is the purty girl. I dunna, by the way, how the ould Black
Prophet came by the likes o' you; but, then he was a handsome vagabond
in his day, himself, an' you are like him."

"What do you want to say?" she asked, impatiently; "but stand outside,
I won't speak to you here--your voice would waken a corpse. Here, now,"
she added, having gone out upon the causeway, "what is it?"

"Why, devil a thing," he replied; "only you're a betther girl than I
tuck you to be. It's a pitiful case, this--a woful case at his time o'
life. Be heaventhers, but I'd rather a thousand times see Black Boy,
your own precious father, swing, than this poor ould man."

A moment's temporary fury was visible, but she paused, and it passed
away; after which she returned slowly and thoughtfully into the cabin.