ing piteously near the
door, and after some slight difficulty I ascertained that her father was
either dead or just dying.

'And what may be your father's name, my poor child?' said I. She held
down her head, as if ashamed. I repeated the question, and the wretched
little creature burst into floods of tears still more bitter than she
had shed before. At length, almost provoked by conduct which appeared to
me so unreasonable, I began to lose patience, spite of the pity which I
could not help feeling towards her, and I said rather harshly:

'If you will not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead
me, your silence can arise from no good motive, and I might be justified
in refusing to go with you at all.'

'Oh, don't say that--don't say that!' cried she. 'Oh, sir, it was that
I was afeard of when I would not tell you--I was afeard, when you
heard his name, you would not come with me; but it is no use hidin' it
now--it's Pat Connell, the carpenter, your honour.'

She looked in my face with the most earnest anxiety, as if her very
existence depended upon what she should read there; but I relieved her
at once. The name, indeed, was most unpleasantly familiar to me; but,
however fruitless my visits and advice might have been at another time,
the present was too fearful an occasion to suffer my doubts of their
utility or my reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless task
to weigh even against the lightest chance that a consciousness of
his imminent danger might produce in him a more docile and tractable
disposition. Accordingly I told the child to lead the way, and followed
her in silence. She hurried rapidly through the long narrow street which
forms the great thoroughfare of the town. The darkness of the hour,
rendered still deeper by the close approach of the old-fashioned houses,
which lowered in tall obscurity on either side of the way; the damp,
dreary chill which renders the advance of morning peculiarly cheerless,
combined with the object of my walk, to visit the death-bed of a
presumptuous sinner, to endeavour, almost against my own conviction, to
infuse a hope into the heart of a dying reprobate--a drunkard but
too probably perishing under the consequences of some mad fit of
intoxication; all these circumstances united served to enhance the gloom
and solemnity of my feelings, as I silently followed my little guide,
who with quick steps traversed the uneven pavement of the main street.
After