h her
youngest infant lying between her knees and her breast; for the bed was
too cowld to put it into it, without being kept warm by the heat of them
that it used to sleep with."

"Musha, God help her and them," says Ned, "I wish they were here beside
me on this comfortable hob, this minute; I'd fight Nancy to get a
fog-meal for them, any way--a body can't but pity them afther all!"

"You'd fight Nancy!" said Nancy herself--"maybe Nancy would be as
willing to do something for the crathurs as you would--I like every body
that's able to pay for what they get! but we ought to have some bowels
in us for all that. You'd fight Nancy, indeed!"

"Well," continued the narrator, "there' they sat, with cowld and fear in
their pale faces, shiverin' over the remains of the fire, for it was now
nearly out, and thinking, as the deadly blast would drive through the
creaking ould door and the half-stuffed windies, of what their father
would do under such a terrible night. Poor Sally, sad and sorrowful, was
thinking of all their ould quarrels, and taking the blame all to herself
for not bein' more attentive to her business, and more kind to Larry;
and when she thought of the way she thrated him, and the ill-tongue she
used to give him, the tears began to roll from her eyes, and she rocked
herself from side to side, sobbing as if her heart would brake. When
the childher saw her wiping her eyes with the corner of the little
handkerchief that she had about her neck, they began to cry along with
her. At last she thought, as it was now so late, that it would be folly
to sit up any longer; she hoped, too, that he might have thought of
going into some neighbor's house on his way, to take shelter, and with
these thoughts, she raked the greeshough (* warm ashes and embers) over
the fire, and after, putting the childher in their little straw nest,
and spreading their own rags over them, she and the young one went to
bed, although she couldn't sleep at all at all, for thinking of Larry.

"There she lay, trembling under the light cover of the bed-clothes, for
they missed Larry's coat, listening to the dreadful night that was in
it, so lonely, that the very noise of the cow, in the other corner,
chewing her cud, in the silence of a short calm, was a great relief to
her. It was a long time before she could get a wink of sleep, for there
was some uncommon weight upon her that she couldn't account for by any
chance; but after she had been lying fo