ook a hand of each.

"A darlin' girl she is, mother. It's now I see how very ill you have
been, my own Una."

"Yes," she replied, "I was ill--but when I heard that your life was
spared, I got better."

This she said with an artless but melancholy naivete, that was very
trying to the fortitude of her lover. As she spoke she looked fondly but
mournfully into his face.

"Connor," proceeded his mother, "I hope you are fully sensible of the
mercy God has shown you, under this great trial?"

"I hope I am, indeed, my dear mother. It is to God I surely owe it."

"It is, an' I trust that, go where you will and live where you may, the
day will never come when you'll forget the debt you owe the Almighty,
for preventin' you from bein' cut down like a flower in the very bloom
of your life. I hope, avillish machree, that that day will never come."

"God forbid it ever should, mother dear!"

"Thin you may learn from what has happened, avick agus asthofe, never,
oh never, to despair of God's mercy--no matter into what thrial or
difficulty you maybe brought. You see, whin you naither hoped for it
here, nor expected it, how it came for all that."

"It did, blessed be God!"

"You're goin' now, ahagur, to a strange land, where you'll meet--ay,
where my darlin' boy will meet the worst of company; but remember,
alanna avillish, that your mother, well as she loves you, an' well, I
own, as you deserve to be loved--that mother that hung over the cradle
of her only one--that dressed him, an' reared him, an' felt many a proud
heart out of him--that mother would sooner at any time see him in his
grave, his sowl bein' free from stain, than to know that his heart was
corrupted by the world, an' the people you'll meet in it."

Something in the last sentence must have touched a chord in Una's heart,
for the tears, without showing any other' external signs of emotion,
streamed down her cheeks.

"My advice, then, to you--an' oh, avick machree, machree, it is my last,
the last you will ever hear from my lips--"

"Oh, mother, mother!" exclaimed Connor, but he could not proceed--voice
waa denied him, Una here sobbed aloud.

"You bore your thrial nobly, my darlin' son--you must thin bear this
as well; an' you, a colleen dhas, remember your promise to me afore I
consulted to come with you this day."

The weeping girl here dried her eyes, and, by a strong effort, hushed
her grief.

"My advice, thin, to you, is never to neglect your duty to