her and the
like uv her!" He did live, however, but he certainly did not grow up to
be very tall. "Times grew worse an' worse for me at home," continued he,
"and a quare time I had of it till I was fourteen years of age, when one
day says I to mesilf, 'flesh and blood can bear it no longer,' and I ran
away to the city uv Dublin where an aunt by me mother's side lived. Me
aunt was a poor woman, but she gave a warm welcim to her sister's
motherless boy; she trated me kindly and allowed me to share her home,
although she could ill afford it, till I got a place as sarvant in a
gintleman's family. As for my father, he niver throubled his head about
me any more; indade I think he was glad to be rid uv me, an' all by
manes of that wicked woman. It was near two years afther I lift home
that I took the notion of going to Ameriky; me aunt advised me against
going, but, whin she saw that me mind was set on it, she consinted, and
did her best, poor woman, to sind me away lookin' dacent and
respectable. I niver saw me father or me stepmother agin. I had no wish
to see her; but, although I knew me father no longer loved me, I had
still some natral-like feelin's for him; but, as I had runaway from
home, I durst not go back, an' so I lift Ireland widout a sight uv him.
But I _could_ not lave it foriver, as it might be, widout one more sight
uv me mother's grave. I rached the small village where me father lived
about nightfall, and lodged in the house uv a kind neighbor who
befrinded me, an he promised, at my earnest wish, to say nothing to any
one uv my visit. Early in the morning, before any one was astir in the
village, I stole away to the churchyard where they buried me mother. I
knelt down, I did, an' kissed the sods which covered her grave, an'
prayed that the blessin' which she pronounced before she died, wid her
hand restin' on me head, might follow me wheriver I might go." The boy
took from his pocket a small parcel, carefully inclosed in a paper,
which he handed to me, saying: "I gathered these shamrocks from off me
mothers grave, before I lift it forever."

My own eyes; grew moist as I gazed upon the now withered shamrock leaves
which the poor boy prized so highly. Would that they had proved as a
talisman to guard him from evil! I listened with much interest to
Terry's story till our conversation was suddenly interrupted by Mr. ----
calling him, in no very gentle tones, to go and drive home the cows from
the far pasture. To