Year: 1876

Sure I'll thry her. Mary Ann Ma
ry Ann Doyle r


She turned like a paralyzed creature;
dull terror filled her. Was she dream
ing, or was she, too, suddenly dead. and
with the dead themselves Again it
called. MARY Ann ! acushla, don't ye
hear?"


Something between groan and cry
burst from Mary AIMS lips; she turned
to run from the spectre. but it was fleet
er of foot than she, and in another mo-
ment living arms we're about her, and
hearty kisses that no ghost could give
recalled her to real life and love. She
was too happy to doubt after the first
certainty. She had not that complex
nature that weighs, recalls, questions.
With the simpleness of child she took
evil or good as it came, without an at
tempt to elude, endure or enjoy. She
was in her place, and if storm or sun
shine besieged it, all she could do was
to accept them, hardly or easily, but
still without question-which was the
reason why she had passed this two
years mourning for Dan, when, if she
herself had gone to the hospital, she
would have found that her husband, in
stead of being dead, was living Doyle
is not rare name among the Irish, and
there had been Daniel Doyle die in
the same ward, whose name Mrs. Kier-
nan had seen in the paper, and thence
jumped to conclusions, for Dams real
name was Dennis. He had lain six
months in the New York hospital, puz-
zling the doctors, and not at all lmprov
ing when wonderful French physician
came to Boston, and Dams case being
quite unique, the hospital physicians
subscribed to send him to Boston hos
pital (for the benefit of science) where
DR.. Leotard could see him and operate
on him.


In Boston he spent another six months,
for the operation which at last relieved
him was lingering, of necessity, and he
suffered every second day. torture of
some kind or other, experimental or Gu
rative, for month, and was left in
desperately exhausted condition. Then
typhoid fever set in, and it was almost
by a miracle that he got well at all.
Once able to work. without dollar in
his pocket, clothed by the charity of
hospital visitors, he went to such work
as he could do to sustain life, and then,
as strength came, to get money enough
to 90 to New York and find Mary Ann
for he had quite forgotten, if he ever
knew. the name and place of the woman
where she boarded. But when he got
to New York his inquiries at the hospi-
tai gave him clew he hunted up Mrs.
Kiernan, got Mary AIMS address, and
he was alive and we'll, and so overjoyed
to see his wife that he forgot all he had
suffered, and could scarcely tell her all
his own story for pity of her woful tale
and glad to find how he had been miss
ed, after all.


An hour after, as Mary Ann sat in
the kitchen. leaning back in an old rock
er, weak, pale and yet breathless from
surprise, old Mrs. jackson came in, with
the tears in her eyes, having just seen
Dan, who introduced himself.


"Poor Mary Ann !" said she, holding
up her hands and her spectacles, and US
ing the phrase that all who knew her
had fitted to Mary Ann instinctively as
soon as they saw her.


But the woman lifted herself to an.
swer, divine joy flooding her face with
rOseate light: "Sure don't ye call me
poor Mary Ann no more! I'm the rich.
est in Ameriky this blissid day 70


Is it best to 60 further? To paint the
meeting Of Mary Ann with her children
when she crossed the "say" again three
years after to bring them back, her mo-
ther having died and left them three
hundred pounds, which was fortune to
them?


Is it not better TO arrest her tale right
here? The children were by this tune
grown out Of her memory physically /;
they were two great girls she had been
robbed of their sweet childish growth,
Of their budding. which is the fairest
time Of flowers A dead child never
ages, but those we leave for years are
sad and strange when next we see them
they are lost 10 US by the saddest Of
losses : they are ours no more. The ar
rested current may flow again in its own
channel, but the bordering grasses. the
mirrored flowers. the floating lilies are
gone the bed Of the brook is dry. arid.
stony. and the water itself is turbid and
troubled.


There are three things that return
not, and one Of them is ''lOst oppcrtuni-
ty." Not any power Of time OF man re-
fold the ardent roses expanded leaves
into their yerdant calyx again it is
splendid and noble now it braves the
eye with color. and breathes an odor Of
rapture from It's sun-smitten breast bat
it is not bud.