370 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



in so exquisite a tranquillity ! The poor mother was 

 weeping beside it ; the father, though less subdued, had 

 not less to contend with ; the features of two or three 

 relatives wore the downcast expression befitting the oc- 

 casion, but there it lay, in the midst of sorrow and 

 melancholy, the happiest looking thing that death had 

 ever passed over. There was an air of intelligence, too, 

 about it which a masterly sculptor might perhaps have 

 transferred to a piece of marble, but which was asso- 

 ciated with feelings which no piece of marble could have 

 awakened. Every one has observed how very intelligent 

 children sometimes look it has even been supposed, 

 prettily enough, though fancifully enough too, that 

 infants when they smile in their dreams are conversing 

 with beings of a better world (Professor Wilson has in- 

 troduced the thought very happily into one of his shorter 

 poems); and so natural is the supposition, that I have re- 

 peatedly heard it expressed by people who had borrowed 

 it from no one. But the expression in the case I de- 

 scribe suggested thoughts which, equally interesting, 

 had more of an air of truth about them, thoughts of 

 the new state into which what, in the language of earth, 

 was termed the deceased 'infant was newly born, and in 

 which it might have already learned more than the 

 wisest of those it had left behind. 



'And now for an incident. When gazing on the 

 sweet little face footsteps were heard approaching the 

 door, and the cloth was drawn over. The latch was 

 raised, and a poor beggar woman, accompanied by a little 

 girl and boy, the eldest not more than five years of age, 

 half crossed the threshold and then stood; but on seeing 

 from the furniture, which was hung with white, and the 

 appearance of the bed, that there was a corpse in the 

 apartment, the woman dropped a few words in Gaelic, 



