after the peaceful hours spent with Mrs.
Turner, the old woman sat for some time silent and sad, with elbows
resting on the table, and her face buried in her hands.

At length she looked up.

"My Nora's very sadly," she observed.

The widow paused in her needlework, and gazed at the troubled
countenance of her old friend.

"She is not ill, is she?" was the question: "I saw her this morning, and
then she seemed pretty much the same."

"No, not ill in body, at least not much," replied the poor mother; "but
oh! Mrs. Turner, my Nora is not like my Nora of days gone by."

And the grey head bent low upon the table, and the worn wrinkled face
was hidden, to hide the bitter tears which fell.

Her sympathising listener put down her work, and rising softly, laid her
hand gently upon her neighbour's sorrow-bent head.

"Take heart, Mrs. Flanagan," she soothed; "it will all come right at
last, in God's own time. Just think how once you feared you should never
see your daughter again, and then"----

"Oh, but she's not the same; no longer gay, or even cheerful, as she
used to be," was sobbed forth; "sits for hours looking far-away like, as
if she saw me not; yet once I was all to her. Ah, woe is me that I
should be sorry she was not laid to rest years ago, when a sinless
child, like little Jimmy was to-day!"

Whilst the unhappy mother was thus pouring out her heart sorrow, Pollie
had crept up, and in loving pity had slidden her small hand into her
aged friend's in token of sympathy with her grief. For some time Mrs.
Flanagan was too absorbed with her great woe to heed that gentle caress,
but when alluding to the dead boy she raised her head, and saw the
little girl's tearful eyes lifted to hers.

"Please, don't cry, dear Mrs. Flanagan," she said timidly. "Nora will
soon be like she once was; won't she, mother?"

"Bless you, my precious," cried the poor old woman, laying her hand
lovingly on the child's curly head, "you're a real comfort to me."

"O mother," murmured a soft voice, "have patience with me, dearest; I am
still your own Nora; only--oh, so worn and sin-stained!"

They started in surprise. Unseen she had entered the room, and had
overheard her poor mother mourning for her child.

Meekly she knelt at her parent's feet, with tearless eyes upraised, but
clasping the hard rough hand that had so toiled for her in the years
gone by, and was willing still to toil, could it but bring back some few
gleams of former