you think so sad and forlorn—were houses of
a better order than the mud cabins you have
read so much about. These stone cottages
were inhabited by tenants who have gone to
America and elsewhere, as well as by people
who died of fever and famine. The mud
cabins have melted away. Some which you
suppose to be dunghills or mud heaps, are
plainly ruined cabins to our experienced eyes.
No doubt many of them are graves of un-
coffined corpses. The bones will be turned
up by the plough or the spade some day;
and then, when they are found, singly or in
families, men will say, ' These are people who
died in the famine.' There are many children
now in the orphan school who, the last
survivors of their families, know that one
parent was just hidden in the ground in a
bag, and the other without any covering at
all, while the brothers and sisters lie under
the ruins of the cabin. But, dreadful as is the
reason and fearful the way, it is true that the
lowest order of dwellings has nearly
disappeared: and may they never be seen more."

"Never, indeed! " I replied. " Those that
remain are wretched enough. And when
you used to shut the shutters at night," said I,
"were you able to think at all of other things
—to sleep—to cheer one another?"

"Why," replied she, " I cannot say we
were, during the worst—the latter—part of
that dreadful year. There were reasons why,
with our house full of good children, home
was worst of all. There was a fine young
man—an excellent fellow indeed he was, and
very clever—an officer in the commissariat
department, who had been for some time
engaged to our eldest daughter. She was
very young, to be sure—only eighteen that
year: but they knew one another very well;
and, in short, everything was ready, and we
were getting the license—for we did not like
to make them wait longer—when he took the
fever. Nothing could keep her from him.
He was in a lodging in the town, and lay in
a close inner room. I did not know which
way to turn myself; but her aunt went with
her; and there she nursed him, very quietly,
saying little to any body. One day Dr. A.
came to my husband, and said, if she remained
in that inner room with a fever patient, so
closely as she nursed him, she would be down
in it presently. So her father and I went,
and brought her away home to dinner. She
made no particular objection when we had
once got her away, and we said no more about
it, but kept on talking as cheerfully as we
could; and she seemed reconciled, and ate
some dinner. Soon after, she had disappeared;
and we knew where she was. But, by that
time, her aunt had taken the fever."

"And did the young man die!"

"O yes, he died. Her father and I were
there; and we brought her away—she, in
fact, not knowing at the moment that he was
dead. She had to pass the bed, too; but we
took her between us, and got her past without
her looking in. You would hardly think what
happened afterwards."

I was in no condition for anything but
receiving what I was told.

"At first, she seemed to take it quietly;
whether because of her aunt being very bad
in the fever, or what, I don't know. But,
after a little while, she suddenly went mad—
perfectly mad—for nine days. And there were
we, with the people in the yard, as usual;
and her aunt in the fever at one end of the
house, and she mad at the other. That was
a time to go through!"

"And did they die too?" I asked.

"They! O no! She is the daughter who
was married, nearly two years ago, to the
curate of X. She recovered by degrees, till
she was quite well. And her aunt recovered
too; but it was a great struggle."

"And how cheerful you look now!"

"O yes. You see, we have always so much
to do; that is a great thing for people who
have had to go through such a season. The
poor creatures who had to die are out of their
pain, and buried away; and those who had
to emigrate are gone. You observed this
morning how healthy the country-people
look: and so they do. The women have
careworn faces; some of them thinking of
their dead children, perhaps; and if you
were to see them in June, before the cropping
begins, you would not think quite so well of
their looks as you do now. And it is sad to
see the grass-grown roads to depopulated
villages; and to see brambles choking up the
doors where neighbours used to go in and
out; and nettles growing tall where many a
woman that I knew used to sit and spin, with
her children playing round her—half of them
now dead, and the rest in the orphan school
or the workhouse."

"I saw potatoes growing on the floor of
one roofless house, and cabbages in another."

"Very likely. There is no want of heart
among the Irish, as I am sure I need not tell
you. But, if the hungry can get food out of a
dead neighbour's hearthstone, they must do it,
without too much refining. I dare say the cheerfulness
of our house may grate a little on your
feelings, after all I have told you: but——'"

"Do not say a word about that," I
exclaimed; " I am too glad to see it; I know
too well how natural it is, to have one critical
thought, to presume——"

"It is natural," replied she, in her sprightly
tone. " Our children are going out into the
world—marrying, or otherwise settling, very
happily. And there is no very pressing
misery about us now, though there is more
distress than you see, and the prospects of the
district are far from being even what they
were before the famine. But it is harvest tune
now; and we are gay at harvest time. My
husband and I say, however, now and then,
that we hope there will be no more famines
while we are here; for we do not think we
could go through it again."