Pressing the little shoes close to her bosom with both hands, the mother turned those mournful eyes upon the speaker, listening to every word, and, at the end, said eagerly,-- "Tell me some more! Tell me every thing she said and did! Oh! was she happy?" The word had grown so strange upon her lips and in her heart, that, as she said it, all the tense chords, so long attuned to grief, thrilled with a sharp discord; and, turning yet paler than before, she sank upon a chair, and, leaning her forehead on the edge of the open drawer, wept such tears as, pray God, happy mothers, you and I may never weep. "O my baby, my baby! O my little child!" moaned she again and again, until the tender heart of the Irish woman could endure no longer; and, coming to the side of her guest, she knelt beside her, and put her arms about the slender figure that shook with every sob, and drew the bright head to rest upon her own shoulder. "O ye poor darlint! ye poor, young crather, that's got the black sorrer atin' inter yer heart, all the same as if ye wor owld an' mane an' oogly, like mesilf!-it's none but Him aboov as kin comfort yees. Blissid Vargin, as was a moother yersilf, an' knowed a moother's pains an' a moother's love, an' all the ins an' outs uv a moother's heart, luck down on this young moother an' help her, an' spake to thim as can help her betther nor yees, an' give back her child; bekase ye mind the time yer own Howly Child wor lost, an' ye sought him sorrerin'; an' ye mind the joy an' the comfort that wor in it whin he was foun'. Och Mother of Jasus! hear us this day, if niver again." As the passionate prayer ended, the lady raised her head, and kissed the tear-stained cheek of the petitioner. "Thank you," said she. "I know that you were good to her, and that she loved you; but, oh! did she forget me so soon?" Alas poor human heart whose purest impulses are tinged with selfishness! You who have lost your nearest and dearest, can you say from your inmost soul that you would be content to know yourself and all of earth forgotten, or that it is sorrow to you to fancy that a lingering memory, a faint regret for the love you so lavished, stains the perfection of heavenly bliss? Tact is not a matter of breeding; and Chesterfield or Machiavelli could have found no better answer than that of Mrs. Ginniss:-- "Sure, honey, it wor alluz she remembered yees, an' longed for yees; though the little crather wor that yoong, an' the faver had so poot her about, that she didn' know what it wor she wanted nor missed; but it wor 'mother' as wor writ in the blue eyes uv her as plain as prentin'." "And was she very, very sick?" asked the sad voice again.