ible destitution, which rings feeble and
hollow from an empty and exhausted frame, she implored them for some
food.

"We haven't it for you, honest woman," said Nelly, in her cold,
indifferent voice--"it's not for you now."

The hope of relief was nearly destroyed by the unfeeling tones of the
voice in which she was answered. She looked, however, at her famishing
children, and once more returned to the door, after having gone a few
steps from it.

"Oh, what will become of these?" she added, pointing to the children. "I
don't care about myself--I think my cares will soon be over."

"Go to the divil out o' that!" shouted the prophet--"don't be tormentin'
us wid yourself and your brats."

"Didn't you hear already," repeated his wife, "that you got your answer?
We're poor ourselves, and we can't help every one that comes to us. It's
not for you now."

"Don't you hear that there's nothing for you?" again cried the prophet,
in an angry voice; "yet you'll be botherin' us!"

"Indeed, we haven't it, good woman," repeated Nelly; "so take your
answer."

"Don't you know that's a lie?" said Sarah, addressing her step-mother.
"You have it, if you wish to give it."

"What's a lie?" said her father, starting, for he had again relapsed into
his moodiness. "What's a lie?--who--who's a liar?"

"You are!" she replied, looking him coolly and contemptuously in the
face; "you tell the poor woman that there's nothing for her. Don't you
know that's a lie? It may be very well to tell a lie to them that can
bear it--to a rich bodagh, or his proud lady of a wife--although it's a
mean thing even to them; but to tell a lie to that heartbroken woman
and her poor childhre--her childhre--aren't they her own?--an' who would
spake for them if she wouldn't. If every one treated the poor that way,
what would become of them? Ay, to look in her face, where there's want
an' hunger, and answer distress wid a lie--it's cruel--cruel!"

"What a kind-hearted creature she is," said her step-mother, looking
towards her father--"isn't she?"

"Come here, poor woman," said Sarah, calling her back; "it is for
you. If these two choose to let you and your childhre die or starve, I
won't;" and she went to the meal to serve them as she spoke.

The woman returned, and looked with considerable surprise at her; but
Nelly went also to the meal, and was about to interpose, when Sarah's
frame became excited, and her eyes flashed, as they always did when in a
stat