"He is my brother, sir--my own brother, and he has gone and 'listed, and it's breaking my mother's heart; and sure, yer honor, if he goes away for a soldier, she will die, and it's all alone in the world I'll be." With that, her little red lips began to quiver, and the tears to fall from her soft, brown eyes. "But what good will it do Phin, for you to kiss the Blarney Stone?" asked one of the ladies. "Whist!" said the child, looking about her, and speaking low, as though afraid of being overheard by some one unfriendly to Phin, "it's just a little plot of my own. I was told that the new lord-lieutenant was coming to Cork, and I knew he could let poor Phin off from being a soldier; so I said nothing to nobody, but came up to entrate him. You see I had often heard how this same Blarney Stone would give people an ilegant and moving discoorse; and sure I thought I'd need to kiss it, before I could stand up forninst a great lord, and say my story. That is all, yer ladyship." "Oh, little girl!" cried Fanny, joyfully, "you need not kiss the old stone for that, for my papa is--" Here the impulsive little girl caught a warning look from her father, and paused suddenly, while his lordship took up the conversation with the peasant child. "What is your name?" "Norah McCarthy, yer honor." "Ah, quite a pretty name. Well, Norah, how came this brother of yours to enlist?" "Och! it all came from going to Darby O'Hallagher's wake." "What is a wake?" asked Fanny. "A wake, my darling young lady," said Rooney, very politely, "sure it's an entertainment that a man gives after he is dead, when his disconsolate friends all assemble at his house, to discuss his virtues and drink his poteen. There is one who is called a 'keener,' usually an elderly woman, with a touch of madness, or poetry, and a wild rolling eye, who chants a 'keen,' or lamentation; in short, it's a sort of melancholy frolic, where we only drink to drown our sorrow--a good old Irish custom. Now, go on, Norah, my jewel." "Well, may be Phin was a great mourner for Darby, for he was overtaken in drink that night, and brought shame upon himself, that had always been a dacent and a sober lad; and the next day Mary Nelligan wouldn't spake to him, and even our mother turned her face away from him; and so, with the hot shame at his heart, he went straight to the sergeant and 'listed. He was sorry soon, and Mary was sorry, and mother is just kilt with grief, for she has nobody to look to now." "And to obtain your brother's discharge, you have come on this pilgrimage to Blarney Castle, my poor child?" said Lord Clare, laying his hand gently on the little girl's head. "Yes, and will yer honor kindly point out the stone to me? for I must go back to Cork this day."