On arriving at the old ruin, she felt so completely enfeebled, that a little rest was absolutely necessary previous to her reaching the graves she came to visit, although they were only a few yards distant from the spot which afforded the poor creature the requisite shelter while recruiting her exhausted powers.  At length she arose, and having tottered over to the graves, she sat down, and clasping her hands about her knees, she rocked her body to and fro, as Irish women do when under the influence of strong grief.  She then chaunted a verse or two of an old song, whose melancholy notes were not out of keeping with either the scene or the hour; nor an unsuitable burthen for the wild night breeze which wailed through the adjoining ruins in tones that might almost be supposed to proceed from the spirit of death itself, as it kept its lonely watch over those who lay beneath.

“I wonder,” said she, “that they do not speak to me before this, for they know I’m here.  Ah,” she proceeded, “there’s his voice!—­my white-haired Brian’s voice! what is it, ‘darling?  I’m listenin’!

“‘Come, mother, come,’ he says, ‘we are waitin’!’

“Is it for me, a lanna dhas oge?

“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘for you, mother dear, for you!’

“Well, Brian darlin’, I’ll come.

“‘Yes, come,’ he says, ‘for we are wait-in’!’

“And,” she proceeded, “who is this again? ah, sure I needn’t ax; Torley, my heart, I’m here!

“‘Come, mother dear,’ he says, ‘for we are waitin’!’

“Is it for me, my manly son?

“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘for you, mother—­mother dear, for you?’

“Well, Torley darlin’, I’ll come.

“‘Yes, come,’ he says, ‘for we are waitin’?’

“Ah,” she proceeded, “here is my own Hugh, my brave husband, that I fought for, what does he say?  Whisht!

“‘Come, Mary dear—­come, the distracted, the lovin,’ but the heart-broken—­come to us, my fair-haired Mary, for we are waitin’; our hearts love you even ‘in heaven, and long for you to be with us.’

“Husband of my heart, I will come; and here sure I feel as you all do in heaven—­for there is one thing that nothing can kill, and will never die, that is the light that’s in a lovin’ wife’s heart—­the light that shines in a mother’s love—­Hugh, asthore machree, I’ll come, for sure I’m jist ready.

“You are not sick now, Brian,” she proceeded; “it isn’t the cowld pratee, and the black sickenin’ bog water you have there!

“‘No, mother dear,’ he said, ’but we want you; oh, don’t stay away from us, for our hearts long for you.’

“I will come, avillish—­sure I’m jist ready.  Torley,” she proceeded, sustaining a dialogue that proceeded, as it were, out of the accumulated affection of a heart whose tenderness shed its light where that of reason failed,—­“Torley, my manly son, your young cheek is not pale now, nor your eye dim—­you don’t fear the hard-hearted.  Agent, nor his bloodhounds, nor the cowld and bitther storm that beat upon your poor head, an’ you dyin’—­you don’t fear them now, my brave boy—­you neither feel nor fear any of these things now, Torley, my son!