“'It is,' said the other; 'I have got liberty to appear to you,' says she, 'and to tell you that I'm happy.' “'May the holy Virgin be praised!' said the other. 'Mary, dear, you have taken a great weight off of me,' says she: 'I thought you'd have a bad chance, in regard of the life you led.' “'When I died,' said the spirit, 'and was on my way to the other world, I came to a place where the road divided itself into three parts;--one to heaven, another to hell, and a third to purgatory. There was a dark gulf between me and heaven, and a breach between me and purgatory that I couldn't step across, and if I had missed my foot there, I would have dropped into hell. So I would, too, only that the blessed Virgin put my own scapular over the breach, and it became firm, and I stepped on it, and got over. The Virgin then desired me to look into hell, and the first person I saw was my own husband, standing with a green sod under his feet! 'He got that favor,' said the blessed Virgin, 'in consequence of the prayers of a holy priest, that had once been a poor scholar, that he gave assistance to, at a collection made for him in such a chapel,' says she, 'Then,' continued the sowl, 'Mary,' says she, 'but there's some great change in the world since I died, or why would the people live so long? It can't be less than six thousand years since I departed, and yet I find every one of my friends just as I left them.' “'Why,' replied the living sister, 'you're only six days dead.' “'Ah, avourneen!' said the other, 'it can't be--it can't be! for I have been thousands on thousands of years in pain!'--and as she spoke this she disappeared. “Now there's a proof of the pains of purgatory, where one day seems as long as a thousand years; and you know we oughtn't to grudge a thrifle to a fellow-crature, that we may avoid it. So you see, my friends, there's nothing like good works. You know not when or where this lad's prayers may benefit you. If he gets ordained, the first mass he says will be for his benefactors; and in every one he celebrates after that, they must also be remembered: the words are _pro omnibus benefactoribus meis, per omnia secula secularum!_ “Thirdly--hem--I now lave the thing to yourselves. “But wasn't I match for Pettier Donovan, that would brake a stone for the marrow *--Eh?--(a broad laugh at Pother's rueful visage.)--Pettier, you Turk, will your heart never soften--will you never have dacency, an' you the only man of your family that's so? Sure they say you're going to be marrid some of these days. Well, if you get your wife in my parish, I tell you, Pettier, I'll give you a fleecin', for don't think I'll marry you as chape as I would a poor honest man. I'll make you shell out the yallowboys, and 'tis that will go to your heart, you nager you; and then I'll eat you out of house and home at the Stations. May the Lord grant us, in the mane time, a dacent appetite, a blessing which I wish you all,------&c.”