“Very well,” replied the other, anxious to rid himself of the pedlar, “that will do, now.  You are, I perceive, one of those good-natured, speculating creatures, who are anxious to give hope and comfort to every one.  The world has many like you; and it often happens, that when some good fortune does throw the means of doing good into your power, you turn out to be a poor, pitiful, miserable crew, without actual heart or feeling.  Goodbye, now.  I have no more time to spare—­try Dick o’ the Grange himself, and let me know his answer.”

So saying, he rang the bell, and our friend the pedlar, by no means satisfied with the success of his interview, took his leave.

CHAPTER XXIII. —­ Darby in Danger—­Nature Triumphs.

The mild and gentle Mave Sullivan, with all her natural grace and unobtrusive modesty, was yet like many of the fair daughters of her country, possessed of qualities which frequently lie dormant in the heart until some trying calamity or startling event of more than ordinary importance, awakens them into life and action.  Indeed, any one in the habit of observing the world, may have occasionally noticed, that even within the range of his own acquaintances, there has been many a quiet and apparently diffident girl, without pretence or affectation of any kind, who when some unexpected and stunning blow has fallen either upon herself or upon some one within the circle of her affections, has manifested a spirit so resolute or a devotion so heroic, that she has at once constituted herself the lofty example whom all admire and endeavor to follow.  The unrecorded calamities of ordinary life, and the annals of human affection, as they occur from day to day around us, are full of such noble instances of courage and self sacrifice on the part of woman for the sake of those who are dear to her.  Dear, holy, and heroic woman! how frequently do we who too often sneer at your harmless vanities and foibles, forget the light by which your love so often dispels the darkness of our affliction, and the tenderness with which your delicious sympathy charms our sorrows and our sufferings to rest, when nothing else can succeed in giving us one moment’s consolation!

The situation of the Daltons, together with the awful blow which fell upon them at a period of such unexampled misery, had now become the melancholy topic of conversation among their neighbors, most, if not all, of whom were, however, so painfully absorbed in their own individual afflictions either of death, or famine, or illness, as to be able to render them no assistance.  Such as had typhus in their own families were incapable of attending to the wants or distress of others, and such as had not, acting under the general terror of contagion which prevailed, avoided the sick houses as they would a plague.