forwards. But ere he had taken three steps he fell heavily to the ground, and rolled headlong over, like a stag stricken through the heart at speed. CHAPTER XVII. "Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Will come, when it will come." "I'm not afraid to die, Nell," said Kit Macrone to her kind, attentive nurse, as she stood by her bedside damping her burning brow with fresh and cooling water, and fanning it with a bunch of feathers. "I'm not afraid to die, Nell," repeated she, "and yet I would bear the torments of the damn'd to live a little while longer. If I could but live to know the fate of my brave lad!" she continued, clasping her hands together with the agony of the thought. Hush, hush!" returned the old crone soothingly. "Hush, hush, Kate! The fever's abating now, and ye'll live to see him free-" "Never," interrupted the distracted mother, raising herself suddenly in the bed, while the veins upon her forehead swelled and her eyes flashed again. "Never shall I see him more. No, no, no. Ned and I shall never meet again on earth." "You may think so now," added Nell; "but it's your grief, Kate, not your thought." "I know that we shall not," said Kit Macrone, with an energy she seemed incapable of. "The thread of my life is nearly spun to its close." "Never flag thus," replied her nurse. "Who can tell but there's many a happy year in store for ye yet ?". "I can," rejoined Ned's mother in a whisper, and looking earnestly in her face; "I can, Nell." "Most of us pretend to read the book of futurity," returned Nell, "but few would mind admitting among ourselves that it's as closed to the gipsy as to anybody else." "The future's been no sealed or blank page with me," added Kit Macrone. "I have seen the cloud long before the storm's burst, and felt the chilling shade of sorrow while the sun of prosperity has yet been shining. Not, mind ye!" and she raised both her long, fleshless, skinny arms, "not that I would neither could I learn learn all when I could; all when I would. and too appalling a mystery to be trifled with." The future is too dark Speak no more now," said her nurse. Try and get some rest and sleep, Kate." "What I have to say must be said quickly," replied she; "for when I sleep again nothing can ever wake me from it." "And so you really think-" but the long disused springs of sorrow rose to Nell's aged eyes, and the tears coursing down her VOL. II. N wrinkled, furrowed cheeks in streams, forbade her further utterance. "Cry not for me," said Kit Macrone, squeezing her nurse's hands between her own, 66 cry not for me, Nell. All that lives must die-all that blooms must fade. One thing remains for a summer, another for a score ; and yet, whether it be for one or for twenty, or ten times twenty, the end isdeath." But Nell wept the more at these words, and clasped her round the neck and said, with a broken voice, "Don't leave me, Kate. We were girls together, recollect. I am poor, and old, and friendless now. Don't leave me, Kate," and then she smoothed her dying companion's pillow, and propped it against her shoulders, and moistened her dried lips, and did all those attentive offices that the hand of kindness can only perform to the sick. "Would to heaven!" replied she, "that I had it in my power to live. Once I |