t desert us now; sure you
wouldn't desert your mother now, Nannie?"

"If my life could make you easy or happy, mother, I could give it for
your sake, worthless now and unhappy as it is; but I am going to a far
country, where my shame and the misfortunes I have caused will never
be known. I must go, for if I lived here, my disgrace would always be
before you and myself; then I would soon die, and I am not yet fit for
death."

With these words the unhappy girl passed out of the house, and was
never after that night seen or heard of, but once, in that part of the
country.

In the meantime that most pitiable mother, whose afflicted heart could
only alternate from one piercing sorrow to another, sat down once more,
and poured forth a torrent of grief for her unhappy daughter, whom she
feared, she would never see again.

Those who were present, now that the distressing scene which we have
attempted to describe was over, began to chat together with more
freedom.

"Tom Kennedy," said one of them, accosting a good-natured young fellow,
with a clear, pleasant eye, "how are all your family at Beech Grove?
Ould Goodwin and his pretty daughter ought to feel themselves in good
spirits after gaining the lawsuit in the case of Mr. Hamilton's will.
They bate the Lindsays all to sticks."

"And why not," replied Kennedy; "who had a betther right to dispose of
his property than the man that owned it? and, indeed, if any one livin'
desarved it from another, Miss Alice did from him. She nearly brought
herself to death's door, in attending upon and nursing her sister, as
she called poor Miss Agnes; and, as for her grief at her death, I never
saw anything like it, except "--he added, looking at the unfortunate
widow--"where there was blood relationship."

"Well, upon my sowl," observed another, "I can't blame the Lindsays for
feeling so bittherly about it as they do. May I never see yestherday, if
a brother of mine had property, and left it to a stranger instead of to
his own--that is to say, my childre--I'd take it for granted that he was
fizzen down stairs for the same. It was a shame for the ould sinner to
scorn his own relations for a stranger."

"Well," said another, "one thing is clear--that since he did blink them
about the property, it couldn't get into betther hands. Your master,
Tom, is the crame of a good landlord, as far as his property goes, and
much good may it do him and his! I'll go bail that, as far as Miss Alice
he