woman seemed to confide some secret or sorrow to the other, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her hands as if with remorse, whilst her companion looked like one who had been evidently transformed into an impersonation of pure and artless sympathy.  She caught the rough hand of the other—­and, ere she had proceeded very far in her narrative, a few tears of compassion stole down her youthful cheek—­after which she began to administer consolation in a manner that was at once simple and touching.  She pressed the hand of the afflicted woman between hers, then wiped her eyes with her own handkerchief, and soothed her with a natural softness of manner that breathed at once of true tenderness and delicacy.

As soon as this affecting scene had been concluded, the strange woman imperceptibly mended her pace, until her proximity occasioned them to look at her with that feeling which prompts us to recognize the wish of a person to address us, as it is often expressed, by an appearance of mingled anxiety and diffidence, when they approach us.  At length Mave Sullivan spoke—­

“Who is that strange woman that is followin’ us, an’ wants to say something, if one can judge by her looks?”

“Well, I don’t know,” replied Nelly; “but whatsomever it may be, she wishes to speak to you or me, no doubt of it.”

“She looks like a poor woman,’"* said Mave, “an’ yet she didn’t ask anything in Skinadre’s, barring a drink of water; but, God pity her if she’s comin’ to us for relief poor creature!  At any rate, she appears to have care and distress in her face; I’ll spake to her.”

     * A common and compassionate name for a person forced
     to ask alms.

She then beckoned the female to approach them, who did so; but they could perceive as she advanced, that they had been mistaken in supposing her to be one of those unhappy beings whom the prevailing famine had driven to mendicancy.  There was visible in her face a feeling of care and anxiety certainly, but none of that supplicating expression which is at once recognized as the characteristic of the wretched class to which they supposed her to belong.  This circumstance particularly embarrassed the inexperienced girl, whose gentle heart at the moment sympathized with the stranger’s anxieties, whatever they may have been, and she hesitated a little, when the woman approached, in addressing her.  At length she spoke: 

“We wor jist sayin’ to one another,” she observed, “that it looked as if you wished to spake to either this woman or me.”

“You’re right enough, then,” she replied; “I have something to say to her, and a single word to yourself, too.”

“An’ what is it you have to say to me?” asked Nelly; “I hope it isn’t to borrow money from me, bekase if it is, my banker has failed, an’ left me as poor as a church mouse.”

“Are you in distress, poor woman,” inquired the generous and kind-hearted girl.  “Maybe you’re hungry; it isn’t much we can do for you; but little as it is, if you come home with me, you’ll come to a family that won’t scruple to share the little they have now with any one that’s worse off than themselves.”