“Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he 'd never permit you to cross his threshold.” “Ayeh, it's a great sin, to be sure,” whined out the hag, half insolently. “A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop all relief to you till the money be paid back.” “And why not!” “To be sure!” “Miss Mary is right!” “What else could she do?” broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their own claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another. “The Widow Hannigan.” “Here, miss,” simpered out a smiling little old creature, with a courtesy, as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand. “What 's this, Widow Hannigan?” “'T is a picture Mickey made of you, miss, when you was out riding that day with the hounds; he saw you jumping a stone wall.” Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future excellence, and went on,-- “Tell Mickey to mend his writing; his was the worst copy in the class; and here's a card for your daughter's admission into the Infirmary. By the way, widow, which of the boys was it I saw dragging the river on Wednesday?” “Faix, miss, I don't know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to--” “Yes, they would, any one of them; but I 'll not permit it; and what's more, widow, if it occur again, I 'll withdraw the leave I gave to fish with a rod. “Teresa Johnson, your niece is a very good child, and promises to be very handy with her needle. Let her hem these handkerchiefs, and there's a frock for herself. My uncle says Tom shall have half his wages paid him till he's able to come to work again.” But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long, unending catalogue of native misery,--that dreary series of wants and privations to which extreme destitution subjects a long-neglected and helpless people? There was nothing from the cradle to the coffin, from the first wailing wants of infancy to the last requirement of doting old age, that they did not stand in need of. A melancholy spectacle, indeed, was it to behold an entire population so steeped in misery, so utterly inured to wretchedness, that they felt no shame at its exposure, but rather a sort of self-exultation at any opportunity of displaying a more than ordinary amount of human suffering and sorrow;--to hear them how they caressed their afflictions, how they seemed to fondle their misfortunes, vying with each other in calamity, and bidding higher and higher for a little human sympathy.