Mary Margaret was interrupted in her pleasant natural talk by a faint shriek that came from the lower end of the ward, and starting up from between the two infants, she threw a skirt over her shoulders and ran down the dim room. She paused suddenly with an exclamation of terror, for there upon the cot where we left the pale, young mother, she saw a form so fair, so wild, and yet so spirit-like, standing erect in the smoky light, that all the native superstition of her race rose up to chill her. “Blessed saints! but it’s a wraith,” she murmured, sinking gently to her knees, “the poor, beautiful crathur has gone sure enough, and this is the shadow she has left, och, hone—och, hone.” A less fanciful person than good Mary Margaret might have mistaken the vision hovering about the pauper couch for something supernatural. The thin, childish face, so white at the temples and forehead; the burning red of the cheeks; those wild, feverish eyes flashing like stars; the long, thick tresses sweeping down in a golden veil to the coverlet, were full of supernatural loveliness. Mary saw the thin, white hands and arms uplifted in wild grace; the form, slender, waving “like the stalk of some tall flower that threatens to break with the first blast of wind, rising, as it were, into the night.” It was enough to still the blood in the veins of that kind woman, and send her frightened speech in fragments of prayer to her lips. “Whist—whist! what is it sayin’? for sure it’s words that I hear. Drink, drink! It’s alive! it’s the poor young crathur herself clamoring for the drop of could water, and no one forenent to give it. And I, unnatural heathen that I am, lying there atween the babies, and sleeping as if the whole world belonged to me. Water, drink, sartinly, me poor, white darlint; jest aise yerself down till the pilly and see if I doesn’t bring yees a hull teapot full.” It was useless making the request. The poor, young thing waved to and fro on the bed, flung out her thin hands, groping in the air for something to lay hold of; then her fragile limbs seemed to wither up; she sunk down through the murky white in a pale heap, covered only from sight by the abundance of her golden hair. “Hist, hist! what is the matter, darlint?” said Mary Margaret, softly dividing the silken waves from the childish face and attempting to arrange the bed. The young creature looked up, and a gleam of intelligence shot through the fever in her eyes. “I am parched, I want drink, my head throbs, my bosom is full of aching fire. My hands—put them in cold water, they are so hot—they will not let me touch it while these hands are so burning hot.” “There is no drink here!” said Mary Margaret, searching among some cups and bowls that stood upon a chair near the bed, “not a drop of anything.”