Then the arrangements were pushed very briskly, and, with regular American business-like vehemence. The girl selected to act as nurse was the mother's sister, a comely girl of twenty. The American took the child, and rushed out to the haberdasher's, and purchased an outfit for her. He put shoes and stockings on her, which was a novel experience, and a pretty little dress, and a little hat with a feather in it, and a little sash, and all that sort of thing; and he procured shoes and stockings for the elder girl, and a tidy dress, and a hat and shawl, and so forth. And then he brought them back, instructing the mother that he should leave with them for Cork the next morning at eleven, and that the girl and the child should be dressed and ready to depart. [Sidenote: A MOTHER'S LOVE.] The next morning came, and the American went for his child. She was dressed, though very awkwardly. The mother had never had any experience in dressing children, and it was a wonder that she did not get the dress wrong side up. But there she was, and the mother wailed as one who was parting with everything that was dear to her, and the father lay and moaned, looking from Norah to the American. Time was up. The mother took the baby in her arms, and gave it the final embrace, and the long, loving kiss; the father took her in his arms, and kissed her; the other children looked on astounded, while the girl stood weeping. [Illustration: "DROP THE CHILD!"] "Good-bye!" said the American; "I will take good care of the baby," and, taking her from the mother's arms, he started for the door. There was a shriek--the woman darted to him just as he was closing the door, and snatched the baby from him. "Drop the child!" said the father. "You can't have her for all the money there is in Ameriky." "No, sor!" ejaculated the mother, half way between fainting and hysterics. "I can't part wid her!" And she commenced undressing the baby. "Take back yer beautiful clothes--give me back the rags that was on her--but ye can't have the child!" And the girl--she commenced undressing, too; for she did not want to obtain clothes under false pretenses. But the American stopped the disrobing. "It's bad for the child," he said, "but somehow I can't blame you. You are welcome to the clothes, though." And he left as fast as he could, and I noticed he was busy with his handkerchief about his eyes for some minutes. And I am sorry to say he indulged in a very profane soliloquy, 'till he got out of the street, and his objurgations were not leveled at the father and mother. What became of the clothes I know not, but I presume that, when the husband died and went where landlords cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, the widow pawned them to pay the rent, and save the dead body of her husband from being pitched into the street with herself and children; and that when My Lord Bantry saw her name on the list, as paid, he remarked: