“Yes, mother, with God’s help.  O woe!”

“Will you watch over your brothers, and sister Bridget, and go with them to the priest, telling him not to forget that I gave ye all up to his care, and the care of God and his blessed mother?”

“O, I will.”

“Bridget, Patrick, and Eugene, will ye obey, and be said by Paul, who is the oldest?”

“Yes, mother, please God,” they answered, amidst sobbing and tears that half choked them.

“God bless ye, and guard ye, and save ye from all dangers of soul and body.  I give ye up to God.  I place ye under the holy care of the blessed mother of God.  I pray that ye may preserve pure the faith of Saint Patrick.  I bless ye.  O, pray for me.  Jesus, into thy hands—­Jesus—­Mary—­Jesus——.”  There was a sigh, and by a single effort the soul extricated itself from its prison of clay to join the ranks of its kindred spirits.  The widow O’Clery is no more, and Paul and his brethren are orphans indeed.

For a few minutes there was a deep silence in that chamber of death, and Paul repeated the “De Profundis,” in English, out of his Prayer Book; but when the cold and ghastly form of death was perceived by this poor company to be all that was left of their darling and affectionate mother, loud and mournful were their lamentations.  Then, and not till then, did the forlorn state to which they were reduced reveal itself even to their juvenile minds.  There they were, helpless and destitute, without father or mother, friend or relation; on every side strangers, cold, hunger, and want.  The mysterious hand of Providence conducted them from comparative comfort, if not luxury, through several stages of trial, danger, and trouble, till they were now entirely stripped, like Job, of all but an existence to which death was preferable.  Many are the phases of misery and crosses with which the life of man is surrounded in this vale of tears; but we think the condition of the orphan, deprived of both parents, and thrown for support or existence on a strange and selfish world, the most desolate of all.  A policeman was the first who was attracted to the house of mourning by the wailing and cries of those whom this night saw alone and desolate.  Mrs. Doherty, attended by an Irish servant maid from a neighboring house, were the next visitors; and, after piously kneeling around the corpse to offer their fervent prayers for the soul, they prepared to “lay out” the body.  This consists, as all are probably aware, of washing the corpse, clothing it in clean linen, extending it on a table or bed, and putting up such temporary fixtures as would deprive the room in which it lies of the gloom and repulsiveness attendant on such an event.  After arranging all things so that she looked “a decent corpse,” with the religious habit around her, Mrs. Doherty hung up the crucifix, pinned to a white linen sheet at the head of where she lay, placed her “Ursuline Manual” on her breast, and her beads on her arms, crossed on the body.