er hands with
vehemence, appeared to close her assertion by appealing to heaven in
behalf of its truth; the younger looked at her with wonder, seemed
amazed, paused suddenly on her step, raised her hands, and looked as
if about to express terror; but, checking herself, appeared as it were
perplexed by uncertainty and doubt. After this the elder woman seemed
to confide some secret or sorrow to the other, for she began to
weep bitterly, and to wring her hands as if with remorse, whilst her
companion looked like one who had been evidently transformed into an
impersonation of pure and artless sympathy. She caught the rough hand of
the other--and, ere she had proceeded very far in her narrative, a few
tears of compassion stole down her youthful cheek--after which she
began to administer consolation in a manner that was at once simple and
touching. She pressed the hand of the afflicted woman between hers, then
wiped her eyes with her own handkerchief, and soothed her with a
natural softness of manner that breathed at once of true tenderness and
delicacy.

As soon as this affecting scene had been concluded, the strange woman
imperceptibly mended her pace, until her proximity occasioned them to
look at her with that feeling which prompts us to recognize the wish of
a person to address us, as it is often expressed, by an appearance of
mingled anxiety and diffidence, when they approach us. At length Mave
Sullivan spoke--

"Who is that strange woman that is followin' us, an' wants to say
something, if one can judge by her looks?"

"Well, I don't know," replied Nelly; "but whatsomever it may be, she
wishes to speak to you or me, no doubt of it."

"She looks like a poor woman,'"* said Mave, "an' yet she didn't ask
anything in Skinadre's, barring a drink of water; but, God pity her if
she's comin' to us for relief poor creature! At any rate, she appears to
have care and distress in her face; I'll spake to her."

* A common and compassionate name for a person forced
to ask alms.

She then beckoned the female to approach them, who did so; but they
could perceive as she advanced, that they had been mistaken in supposing
her to be one of those unhappy beings whom the prevailing famine had
driven to mendicancy. There was visible in her face a feeling of care
and anxiety certainly, but none of that supplicating expression which is
at once recognized as the characteristic of the wretched class to which
they supposed her to