is to bring the male I'm spakin' of
to that family; any one will show you their little place; an' to leave
it there about dusk this evenin', so that no one will ever know that you
do it; an' as you love God an' hope for mercy, don't breathe my name in
the business at all."

"I will do it for you," replied the other; "but in the meantime where am
I to get the meal?"

"Why, at the miser's," replied Mave; "and when you go there, tell him
that the person who told him they wouldn't forget it to him, sent you
for it, an' you'll get it."

"God forbid I refused you that much," said the stranger; "an' although
it'll keep me out longer than I expected, still I'll manage it for you,
an' come or go what will, widout mentioning your name."

"God bless you for that," said Mave, "an grant that you may never be
brought to the same hard pass that they're in, and keep you from ever
having a heavy or a sorrowful heart."

"Ah, _acushla oge_," replied the woman with a profound sigh, "that
prayer's too late for me; anything else than a heavy and sorrowful heart
I've seldom had: for the last twenty years and upwards little but care
and sorrow has been upon me.

"Indeed, one might easily guess as much," said Mave, "you have a look of
heart-break and sorrow, sure enough. But answer me this: how do you know
that there's evil before me or, about me?'

"I don't know much about it," returned the other; "but I'm afeard
there's something to your disadvantage planned or plannin' against you.
When I seen you awhile ago I didn't know you till I heard your name;
I'm a stranger here, not two weeks in the neighborhood, and know hardly
anybody in it."

"Well," observed Mave, who had fallen back upon her own position, and
the danger alluded to by the stranger, "I'll do nothing that's wrong
myself, and if there's danger about me, as I hear there is, it's a good
thing to know that God can guard me in spite of all that any one can do
against me."

"Let that be your principle, ahagur--sooner or latter the hand o' God
can and will make everything clear, and after all, dear, he is the best
protection, blessed be his name!"

They had now reached the cross-roads already spoken of, where the
prophet's wife again joined them for a short time, previous to her
separation from Mave, whose way from that point lay in a direction
opposite to theirs.

"This woman," said Mave, "wishes to go to Condy Dalton's in the course
of the evening, and you, Nelly, can sh