On entering the ball-room I found the doors and windows all open, as well as the one that led to the sick man's chamber. My foot was arrested on the threshold--for death was there. Yes! that fit of coughing had terminated his life--Michael had expired without a struggle in the arms of his mother. The gay broad beams of the sun were not admitted into that silent room. The window was open, but the green blinds were carefully closed, admitting a free circulation of air, and just light enough to render the objects within distinctly visible. The body was laid out upon the bed enveloped in a white sheet; the head and hands alone were bare. All traces of sorrow and disease had passed away from the majestic face, that, interesting in life, now looked beautiful and holy in death--and happy, for the seal of heaven seemed visibly impressed upon the pure pale brow. He was at peace, and though tears of human sympathy for a moment dimmed my sight, I could not regret that it was so. While I still stood in the door-way, Mrs. Macbride, whom I had not observed until then, rose from her knees beside the bed. She seemed hardly in her right mind, and began talking and muttering to herself. "Och hone! he is dead--my fine bhoy is dead--widout a praste to pray wid him, or bless him in the last hour--wid none of his frinds and relations to lamint iver him, or wake him, but his poor heartbroken mother--Och hone! och hone! that I should ever live to see this day. Get up, my fine bhoy--get up wid ye! Why do you lie there?--owlder folk nor you are abroad in the sunshine.--Get up, and show them how supple you are!" Then laying her cheek down to the cold cheek of the dead, she exclaimed, amid broken sobs and groans-- "Oh, spake to me--spake to me, Mike--my own Mike--'tis the mother that axes ye." There was a deep pause, when the bereaved parent again broke forth-- "Mike, Mike--why did your uncle rare you like a jintleman to bring you to this. Och hone! och hone!--oh, never did I think to see your head lie so low.--My bhoy! my bhoy!--why did you die?--Why did You lave your frinds, and your money, and your good clothes, and your poor owld mother?" Convulsive sobs again choked her utterance. She flung herself upon the neck of the corpse, and bathed the face and hands of him, who had once been her own, with burning tears. I now came forward, and offered a few words of consolation. Vain--all in vain. The ear of sorrow is deaf to all save its own agonised moans. Grief is as natural to the human mind as joy, and in their own appointed hour both will have their way.