anticipated," said the physician, meeting the captain
at the door. "Though if he had remained in the South he might have
lingered until midsummer. Not longer."

The captain nursed the dying man anxiously all day, and when he was dead
came home excited and haggard. It seemed to him by that time that one of
the most lovable fellows in the world had gone out of it. He always was
of that opinion at a funeral.

"Well, it's all over, Jane!" he cried, coming just at dusk into the room,
where she stood at the window, her back turned toward him. "Yes. Poor
Will! He was a good fellow years ago--witty, hospitable. You didn't know
him in his prime. Your mother liked him. That is, well--" He sat down by
the fire, staring at it with his owlish eyes, pulling off his old boots
and soaked coat, for it was raining hard, and wondering a little that Jane
had not a warm change of clothes ready for him as usual. But she did not
move. "Yes," with a groan. "He knows the great secret now, poor fellow! I
wish I'd been kinder to him. There's lots of things I might have done. But
that damned money! I suppose it soured me."

Jane turned. "I am glad _I_ did what was right to him," she said slowly.

The captain looked at her surprised. The shock had been too heavy on the
child, he thought: her eyes were quite sunken in her white face. "Yes,
yes. You were always a very nice, attentive little nurse. But when anybody
dies one is apt to remember one's shortcomings to them, and wish for even
an hour to set all right."

"I have done nothing to him which I would wish to set right," she said
again, her lips moving with difficulty.

Her father did not answer. But she was so unused to speak of herself in
any way that he observed her persistence now as peculiar.

REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

IRISH SOCIETY IN THE LAST CENTURY.

Nations as well as individuals have the defects of their qualities, and
the Irish race has its faults as well as its virtues; but it will be
conceded on all sides that the _humdrum_ is not one of its attributes.
During the eighteenth century the social state of Ireland was peculiarly
anomalous. The penal laws were in full force for the most of that time.
The great families, Irish or Norman--the latter having long before become
_Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores_--had either conformed to the ruling faith or
had betaken themselves to more friendly shores, or, having lost their
estates by confiscation or treacher