and innocent play with his little sisters. His mother
felt for his pulse, but she could feel no pulse, she kissed his passive
lips, and then--oh, woful alternative of affliction!--she turned to his
equally insensible father.

"Oh, ma'am," said one of the girls, who had gone over to look at Art;
"oh, for God's sake, ma'am, come here--here is blood comin' out of the
masther's mouth."

She was at the bedside in an instant, and there, to deepen her
sufferings almost beyond the power of human fortitude, she saw the blood
oozing slowly out of his mouth. Both the servants were now weeping and
sobbing as if their hearts would break.

"Oh, mistress dear," one of them exclaimed, seizing her affectionately
by both hands, and looking almost distractedly into her face, "oh,
mistress dear, what did you ever do to desarve this?"

"I don't know, Peggy," she replied, "unless it was settin' my father's
commands, and my mother's at defiance; I disobeyed them both, and they
died without blessin' either me or mine. But oh," she said, clasping
her hands, "how can one poor wake woman's heart stand all this--a double
death--husband and son--son and husband--and I'm but one woman, one
poor, feeble, weak woman--but sure," she added, dropping on her knees,
"the Lord will support me. I am punished, and I hope forgiven, and he
will now support me."

She then briefly, but distractedly, entreated the divine support, and
rose once more with a heart, the fibres of which were pulled asunder, as
it were, between husband and son, each of whose lips she kissed, having
wiped the blood from those of her husband, with a singular blending
together of tenderness, distraction and despair. She went from the one
to the other, wringing her hands in dry agony, feeling for life in
their hearts and pulses, and kissing their lips with an expression of
hopelessness so pitiable and mournful, that the grief of the servants
was occasioned more by her sufferings than by the double catastrophe
that had occurred.

The doctor's house, as it happened, was not far from theirs, and in a
very brief period he arrived.

"Heavens! Mrs. Maguire, what has happened?" said he, looking on the two
apparently inanimate bodies with alarm.

"His father," she said, pointing to the boy, "being in a state of drink,
threw a little beech chair at the apprentice here, he stepped aside, as
was natural, and the blow struck my treasure there," she said, holding
her hand over the spot where h