nless to God himself, I don't know."

"We're come to it at last," said their daughter Peggy; "little we
thought of it, but at all events, it's betther to do that than to do
worse--betther than to rob or steal, or do an ondaicent act of any
kind. In the name of God, then, rather than you should die of hunger,
Mary--you an' my father an' all of yez--I'll go out and beg from the
neighbors."

"Beg!" shouted the old man, with a look of rage--"beg!" he repeated,
starting to his feet and seizing his staff--"beg! you shameless and
disgraceful strap. Do you talk of a Dalton goin' out to bee? taka that!"

And as he spoke, he hit her over the arm with a stick he always carried.

"Now that will teach you to talk of beg-gin'. No!--die--die first--die
at wanst; but no beggin' for any one wid the blood of a Dalton in their
veins. Death--death--a thousand times sooner!"

"Father--oh! father, father, why, why did you do that?" exclaimed his
son, "to strike poor kind an' heart-broken Peggy, that would shed her
blood for you or any of us. Oh! father, I am sorry to see it."

The sorrowing girl turned pale by the blow, and a few tears came down
her cheeks; but she thought not of herself, nor of her sufferings. After
the necessary pause caused by the pain, she ran to him, and, throwing
her arms about his neck, exclaimed in a gush of sorrow that was
perfectly heart-rending to witness--

"Oh! father dear, forgive me--your own poor Peggy; sure it was chiefly
on your account and Mary's I was goin' to do it. I won't go, then, since
you don't wish it; but I'll die with you."

The old man flung the stick from him, and clasping her in his arms, he
sobbed and wept aloud.

"My darlin' child," he exclaimed, "that never yet gave one of us a bad
word or angry look--will you forgive your unhappy father, that doesn't
know what he's doin'! Oh! I feel that this state we're in--this outher
desolation an' misery we're in--will drive me mad! but that hasty blow,
_avourneen machree_--that hasty blow an' the hot temper that makes me
give it, is my curse yet, has always been my curse, an' ever will be
my curse; it's that curse that's upon me now, an' upon all of us this
minute--it is, it is!"

"Condy," said his wife, "we all know that you're not as bad as you make
yourself. Within the last few years your temper has been sorely tried,
and your heart too, God knows; for our trials and our downcome in this
world has been great. In all these trials, however