as to come on one knee, and now he would
steer himself along by taking hold of the sills of windows, and of the
railings which here and there were erected in front of a few houses on
the retired and deserted street on which he crept along.

At length he approaches an old three-story, red, frame-built house,
which, from its shattered and dilapidated windows, at first seemed to
be deserted, but which, from the description left by a messenger with
his domestic in the forenoon, he could not doubt was the place where he
heard the emigrant widow lay at the point of death.

"Is this where the sick woman is?" said he to an old woman who opened
the door.

"Yes, your reverence," answered Mrs. Doherty, at once recognizing the
priest; "and thank God you are come. The Lord never deserts his own,
praise be to his holy name."

"Is she very ill?" said Father O'Shane; for thus was named the sole
pastor of the city of T---- in those days.

"That she is, your reverence, and callin' for the priest this three
days; but as we heard your reverence say that you would be in the
country till this day, we thought it no use to give in the sick call
sooner. I myself gave it in this morning afore my poor, sick old man got
up."

"God help the poor!" muttered the tender-hearted priest, as he ascended
to the third floor, where the dying woman lay.

"Amen!" answered Mrs. Doherty, aloud. "You would pity her, your
reverence, if you seen the misery they are in this two months; and it is
easily telling they saw better days in the ould country. It is easily
knowing _that_, by the _dacent_, mannerly children she has around her,
God help 'em."

"Pax huic domui, et omnibus habitantibus in ea"--"Peace to this house,
and all that dwell therein," uttered the priest of God, as he opened
the latchless door of the room on the third story of the old "Oil Mill
House," where the patient was extended on her "pallet of straw." For a
moment he stood on the threshold, for within an unusual and solemn sight
presented itself to his view. A woman of fair and comely features,
between about thirty and forty years of age, lay as described on the
floor, with four children kneeling around her. The eldest, a lad of
about fifteen years, read aloud the litanies and prayers of the church
for the dying, while the three younger children repeated the responses
in fervent but trembling accents.

"Lord, have mercy on her," cried Paul, the eldest boy.

"Christ, have mercy on her