as it struck his mind that possibly Eugene
might have fallen in too.

"Are you sure there is nobody else in?" said he to the bystanders.

"No, there ain't nobody else in," said Gulvert; "all we have left, now,
are around here."

"And how came this relic to get into the well?" said Paul. "I think I
saw this before."

"That? O, that's a toy that a young Papist orphan which we had used to
say his prayers on."

"And where is that orphan now? O, tell me, where is he? For God's sake
tell me, where is my beloved brother?" exclaimed Paul.

"He is dead."

"O, don't mock me, but tell me the truth. I assure you I am a brother of
the orphan child, Eugene O'Clery. What has become of him?"

"We do not joke, my young gentleman," said an aged man in the crowd.
"Your brother, the orphan you allude to, died suddenly on the night of
the first of this month, and was interred in yon mound on the second of
the month."

"O Lord! O Lord! grant me patience. O my brother! O Eugene! O beloved
child of our hearts! what has become of you? Did you die on your bed, or
meet with an accident? or how did these beads you loved so well come
into this horrid, pestiferous well? O, woe is me! Why did I ever let you
out of my sight? Why did I not remain in servitude and slavery, rather
than let you into the care of the cruel, false-hearted stranger? O
villanous deceiver! O infamous prevaricator! Parson Dilman, why did I
listen to your seductive promises?"

The reader may imagine, for we cannot adequately describe, the burden
of woe and grief which took possession of the soul of Paul when he found
that his darling brother, on whose account he suffered so much anxiety
and came such a distance, was gone forever from his sight. And when he
learned how he died; how, after countless tortures, by whippings, by
hunger, and by confinement, the delicate martyr of Christ was allowed to
perish on the damp floor of an old, deserted house; how he was deprived
of the memorials of his faith and country; how he was buried with as
little ceremony, and as much indifference, as if he had been an
irrational animal,--when he learned all these circumstances from the two
Irish cotters, Lee and Twohy, it took him to pray continually not to
yield to feelings of hatred and revenge.

A circumstance related to him, however, by the peasants, whose
hospitality Paul consented to avail himself of for a few days, served to
reconcile him to Eugene's fate, and to inspire him with