here was the likes of him? No, asthore; it's no
wondher--it's no wondher! lonesome will your heart be widout him; for I
know what he'd feel if a hair of your head was injured."

"Oh, I know it--I know it! There was music in his voice, an' grah and.
kindness to every crathur on God's earth; but to me--to me--oh, no
one knew his love to me, but myself an' God. Oh, if I was dead, that
I couldn't feel this, or if my life could save his! Why didn't the
villain,--the black villain, wid God's curse upon him--why didn't he
shoot me, thin I could never be Mike's wife, an' his hand o' murdher
might be satisfied? If he had, I wouldn't feel as I do. Ay! the warmest,
an' the best, an' the dearest blood of my heart, I could shed for
him. That heart was his, an' he had a right to it. Our love wasn't of
yistherday: afore the links of my hair came to my showldhers I loved
him, an' thought of him; an many a time he tould me that I was his
first! God knows he was my first, an' he will be my last, let him live
or die."

"Well, but, Peggy achora," said his sister, "maybe it's sinful to be
cryin' this way, an' he not dead."

"God forgive me, if it's a sin," replied Peggy; "I'd not wish to do
anything sinful or displasin' to God; an' I'll sthrive to keep down my
grief: I will, as well as I can."

She put her hands on her face, and by all effort of firmness, subdued
the tone of her grief to a low, continuous murmur of sorrow.

"An' along wid that," said the sister, "maybe the noise is disturbin'
him. Darby put us all out o' the kitchen to have pace an' quietness
about him."

"An' 'twas well thought o' Darby," she replied; "an' may the blessin' o'
God rest upon him for it! A male's mate or a nights lodgin' he'll never
want under my father's roof for that goodness to him. I'll be quiet."

There was now a short pause, during which those in the room heard a
smack, accompanied by the words, "Dheah. Grashthias! throth I'm
the betther o' that sup, so I am. Nothin' keeps this thief of a
configuration down but it. Dheah Grashthias for that! Oh, thin, this is
the stuff! It warms the body to the top o' the nails!"

"Don't spare it, Darby," said old Reillaghan, "if it does you good."

"Avourneen," said Darby, "it's only what gives me a little relief I ever
take, jist by way of cure, for it's the only thing does me good, when I
am this-a-way."

Several persons in the neighborhood were, in the mean time, flocking to
Reillaghan's house. A wor