were calculated to impress a beholder with love, and sympathy,
and tenderness, such as no human heart could resist.

Mave, on glancing at her mother, saw a few tears stealing, as it were,
down her cheeks.

"I wish to God, my dear daughter," exclaimed the latter, in a low voice,
"that I had never seen your face, lovely as it is, an' it surely would
be betther for yourself that you had never been born."

She then passed to the bed-side, and taking Mave's place, who withdrew,
she stooped down, and placing her lips upon Sarah's white broad
forehead, exclaimed--"May God bless you, my dear daughter, is the
heart-felt prayer of your unhappy mother!"

Sarah suddenly opened her eyes, and started.--"What is wrong? There is
something wrong. Didn't I hear some one callin' me daughter? Here's a
strange woman--Charley Hanlon's aunt--Biddy, come here!"

"Well, acushla, here I am--keep yourself quiet, achora--what is it?"

"Didn't you tell me that my mother swore my father's life away?"

"It's what they say," replied the matter-of-fact nurse.

"Then it's a lie that's come from hell itself," she replied--"Oh, if I
was only up and strong as I was, let me see the man or woman that durst
say so. My mother! to become unnatural and treacherous, an' I have a
mother--ha, ha--oh, how often have I thought of this--thought of what a
girl I would be if I was to have a mother--how good I would be too--how
kind to her--how I would love her, an' how she would love me, an' then
my heart would sink when I'd think of home--ay, an' when Nelly would
spake cruelly an' harshly to me I'd feel as if I could kill her, or any
one."

Her eye here caught Mave Sullivan's, and she again started.

"What is this?" she exclaimed; "am I still in the shed? Mave
Sullivan!--help me up, Biddy."

"I am here, dear Sarah," replied the gentle girl--"I am here; keep
yourself quiet and don't attempt to sit up; you're not able to do it."

The composed and serene aspect of Mave, and the kind, touching tones
of her voice, seemed to operate favorably upon her, and to aid her
in collecting her confused and scattered thoughts into something like
order.

"Oh, dear Mave," said she, "what is this? What has happened? Isn't there
something wrong? I'm confused. Have I a mother? Have I a livin' mother,
that will love me?"

Her large eyes suddenly sparkled with singular animation as she asked
the last question, and Mave thought it was the most appropriate moment
to make the