me from market, waiting for her that could never
come again. When the sun was near setting, her gaze used to be more
fixed and eager; but when the darkness came on, her blue eyes used to
droop like the flowers that shut up their leaves, and she would come in
quietly without saying a word, and allow me to undress her and put her
to bed.

It troubled us and the young ladies greatly that she would not eat. It
was almost impossible to get her to taste a morsel; indeed the only
thing she would let inside her lips was a bit of a little white bun,
like those her poor mother used to bring her. There was nothing left
untried to please her. I carried her up to the big house, thinking the
change might do her good, and the ladies petted her, and talked to her,
and gave her heaps of toys and cakes, and pretty frocks and coats; but
she hardly noticed them, and was restless and uneasy until she got back
to her own low, sunny door-step.

Every day she grew paler and thinner, and her bright eyes had a sad,
fond look in them, so like her mother's. One evening she sat at the door
later than usual.

"Come in, _alannah_," I said to her. "Won't you come in for your own
Sally?"

She never stirred. I went over to her; she was quite still, with her
little hands crossed on her lap, and her head drooping on her chest. I
touched her--she was cold. I gave a loud scream, and Richard came
running; he stopped and looked, and then burst out crying like an
infant. Our little sister was dead!

Well, my Mary, the sorrow was bitter, but it was short. You're gone home
to Him that comforts as a mother comforteth. _Agra machree_, your eyes
are as blue, and your hair as golden, and your voice as sweet, as they
were when you watched by the cabin-door; but your cheeks are not pale,
_acushla_, nor your little hands thin, and the shade of sorrow has
passed away from your forehead like a rain-cloud from the summer sky.
She that loved you so on earth, has clasped you forever to her bosom in
heaven; and God himself has wiped away all tears from your eyes, and
placed you both and our own dear father, far beyond the touch of sorrow
or the fear of death.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] White dove.

[G] Rich.

[H] Small potatoes.

[I] By-road.

THE OLD WELL IN LANGUEDOC.

The proof of the truth of the following statement, taken from the
_Courrier de l'Europe_, rests not only upon the known veracity of the
narrator, but upon the fact that the whole occurrence i