er a pause, she continued--'Mr. Purcell, do you remember
his features well? they were very beautiful.' I assured her that I did.
'Then you can tell me if you think this a faithful likeness.' She took
from a drawer a case in which lay a miniature. I took it reverently from
her hands; it was indeed very like--touchingly like. I told her so; and
she seemed gratified.

As the evening was wearing fast, and I had far to go, I hastened to
terminate my visit, as I had intended, by placing in her hand a letter
from her son to me, written during his sojourn upon the Continent. I
requested her to keep it; it was one in which he spoke much of her, and
in terms of the tenderest affection. As she read its contents the heavy
tears gathered in her eyes, and fell, one by one, upon the page; she
wiped them away, but they still flowed fast and silently. It was in
vain that she tried to read it; her eyes were filled with tears: so she
folded the letter, and placed it in her bosom. I rose to depart, and she
also rose.

'I will not ask you to delay your departure,' said she; 'your visit here
must have been a painful one to you. I cannot find words to thank you
for the letter as I would wish, or for all your kindness. It has given
me a pleasure greater than I thought could have fallen to the lot of a
creature so very desolate as I am; may God bless you for it!' And thus
we parted; I never saw Castle Connor or its solitary inmate more.

THE DRUNKARD'S DREAM.

Being a Fourth Extract from the Legacy of the late F. Purcell, P. P. of
Drumcoolagh.

'All this HE told with some confusion and
Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand
To expound their vain and visionary gleams,
I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned
Prophetically, as that which one deems
"A strange coincidence," to use a phrase
By which such things are settled nowadays.'
BYRON.

Dreams! What age, or what country of the world, has not and acknowledged
the mystery of their origin and end? I have thought not a little upon
the subject, seeing it is one which has been often forced upon my
attention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet I have never arrived
at anything which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. It does
appear that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be wholly
without its use. We know, indeed, that in the o