ad intended "to
make her soul," but her time was so fully absorbed by the affairs of
those in whom she felt so strong an interest, that she really forgot the
spiritual resolution in the warmth of her secular pursuits.

One evening, about this time, a horse belonging to Peter happened to
fall into a ditch, from which he was extricated with much difficulty
by the laborers. Ellish, who thought it necessary to attend, had been
standing for some time directing them how to proceed; her dress was
rather thin, and the hour, which was about twilight, chilly, for it was
the middle of autumn. Upon returning home she found herself cold, and
inclined to shiver. At first she thought but little of these symptoms;
for having never had a single day's sickness, she was scarcely competent
to know that they were frequently the forerunners of very dangerous and
fatal maladies. She complained, however, of slight illness, and went
to bed without taking anything calculated to check what she felt. Her
sufferings during the night were dreadful: high fever had set in with a
fury that threatened to sweep the powers of life like a wreck before
it. The next morning the family, on looking into her state more closely,
found it necessary to send instantly for a physician.

On arriving, he pronounced her to be in a dangerous pleurisy, from
which, in consequence of her plethoric habit, he expressed but faint
hopes of her recovery. This was melancholy intelligence to her sons and
daughters: but to Peter, whose faithful wife she had been for thirty
years, it was a dreadful communication indeed.

"No hopes, Docthor!" he exclaimed, with a bewildered air: "did you say
no hopes, sir?--Oh! no, you didn't--you couldn't say that there's no
hopes!"

"The hopes of her recovery, Mr. Connell, are but slender,--if any."

"Docthor, I'm a rich man, thanks be to God an' to----" he hesitated,
cast back a rapid and troubled look towards the bed whereon she lay,
then proceeded--"no matther, I'm a rich man: but if you can spare her to
me, I'll divide what I'm worth in the world wid you: I will, sir; an' if
that won't do, I'll give up my last shillin' to save her, an' thin I'd
beg my bit an' sup through the counthry, only let me have her wid me."

"As far as my skill goes," said the doctor, "I shall, of course, exert
it to save her; but there are some diseases which we are almost always
able to pronounce fatal at first sight. This, I fear, is one of them.
Still I do not