302 THE GUERNSEY LILY. 



prcssion than that he was simple sincerity person- 

 ified. 



It pleased God to let me labour among those 

 dear oiilcasls for months together; but after a 

 time my residence was changed, and I made few 

 visits there. Still, so far as my charity purse 

 served, through the help of richer friends, my pen- 

 sioners were regularly attended to ; and D., belov- 

 ed D., was the overseer of the work. The chole- 

 ra came, and swept away many an Irish beggar 

 out of wretched St. Giles's, and the malignant 

 fever carried away many more. D. fell beneath 

 the latter. I followed his remains to the ^rave ; 

 and seeing some of my poor people bending over 

 it in an agony of unrestrained sorrow, my heart 

 was stirred up to visit them during the few hours 

 of my Slav in town. I look a clerical friend with 

 me, and ])lunged at once into the doubly desolate 

 scenes that I had too long been estranged from. 



With sonic difRcully, in a most wretched garret, 

 immeasurably inferior to liis former lodging, I 

 found O'Neil. Me lay almost on the bare ground, 

 williout a vestige of any earthly C()niri)rt. Even 

 the cleanliness that had always marked his appear- 

 ance, was gone. He could not lift his head from 

 the pillow of rags ; but when I spoke, he clasped 

 my hand within his trembling, crooked fingers, and 

 sobbed his blessings for the daily pittance of milk 

 and bread. He then tola us that, during the illness 



