"I shall do that for you, poor aunt Judy, or even attend you now, while you are in health, to the Catholic church, where you can go to the sacraments, and become a member again of that church which you have so long neglected, but which yet seems still to retain a strong hold of your affections and heart. Won't this be the best course, aunt Judy? I will attend you to the church of that zealous young Irish priest whom I see so often hurrying along here to his sick calls up town; and as I suspect I am 'Irish' myself, I hope he will not be displeased at my call." "O, you no Irish, miss, at all, but good Yankee. But tish better not go for de priest till he come to me when I go to die. Now I have religion here in _mon coeur_; ven I die, I profess her open." "Well, Judy, act as you wish; but it appears to me your conduct is singular. I shall do my part, however; and if there is a priest to be had in the city when you take to your death bed, you must have him to attend you." It was by such communings and conversations as the foregoing, during the leisure hours of aunt Judy and her loved Ali', that mutual confidence and disinterested friendship grew into maturity between them--the childish and helpless simplicity of the one, and kind and good-natured condescension of the other, producing the like effects in the hearts of both respectively--that is, disinterested friendship. Yet strong as this friendship was, and enthusiastic as was the love of Judy for her "rosy-cheeked" favorite, they were not sufficient to cause her to reveal the secret of her birth and adoption, even at this hour of Alia's deepest grief and affliction. There were two causes for this her unaccountable silence. Firstly, she had promised not to mention the slightest circumstance connected with the adopted child, and she feared punishment from the anger of her proud massa, whose disgrace might be the consequence. And again, having been in the habit of hearing all sorts of reflections on the "Irish," whom some mad abolitionists would gladly enslave in place of the blacks, poor Judy thought to save Alia from the mortification of finding herself "Irish," by her equivocation and falsehood. CHAPTER XXIV. SHOWS HOW THE CROSS AND SHAMROCK WERE PERMANENTLY UNITED AFTER A LONG SEPARATION.