s arm, and said--

"I am sure, Tom, you are not ungrateful; I am sure you would not forget
a kind act done to poor Peggy, that's gone."

"Peggy!" he replied, "what's about her? gone!--Peggy gone!--is she
gone?"

"She is gone," replied Mave, "but not lost; an' it is most likely that
she is now looking down with displeasure at your conduct and intentions
towards this poor man; but listen."

"Are you goin' to spake about Peggy, though?"

"I am, and listen. Do you remember one evenin' in the early part of this
summer, it was of a Sunday, there was a crowd about old Brian Murtagh's
house, and the report of Peggy's shame had gone abroad and couldn't be
kept from people's eyes any longer. She was turned out of her father's
house--she was beaten by her brother who swore that he would take the
life of the first person, whether man or woman, young or ould, that
would give her one hour's shelter. She was turned out, poor, young,
misled and mistaken crature, and no one would resave her, for no one
durst. There was a young girl then passin' through the village, on
her way home, much about Peggy's own age, but barring in one respect,
neither so good nor so handsome. Poor Peggy ran to that young girl, an'
she was goin' to throw herself into her arms, but she stopped. 'I am not
worthy,' she said, cryin' bitterly; 'I am not worthy,--but oh, I have no
roof to shelter me, for no one dare take me in. What will become of me?'"

While she spoke, Dalton's mind appeared to have been stirred into
something like a consciousness of his situation, and his memory to have
been brought back, as it were, from the wild and turbulent images, which
had impaired its efficacy, to a personal recollection of circumstances
that had ceased to affect him. His features, for instance, became more
human, his eye more significant of his feeling, and his whole manner
more quiet and restored. He looked upon the narrator with an awakened
interest, surveyed Darby, as if he scarcely knew how or why he came
there, and then sighed deeply. Mave proceeded:

"'I am an outcast now,' said poor Peggy; 'I have neither house nor home;
I have no father, no mother, no brother, an' he that I loved, an' said
that he loved me, has deserted me. Oh,' said she, 'I have nothing to
care for, an' nobody to care for me now, an' what was dearest of all--my
good name--is gone: no one will shelter me, although I thought of
nothing but my love for Thomas Dalton!' She was scorned, Thomas D