door with a view to discovering the swiftest and least noisy mode of forcing an entrance, when, to his surprise, he found that, by some overlook on the part of the occupant, the door had been left simply on the latch. The thief could scarcely believe his good fortune, and listened breathlessly, with the door slightly ajar, for any signs of wakefulness within. A heavy slow breathing caught his ear and thrilled him with renewed hope, and a slight twinkle from the dying embers of the fire served to direct his keen glance to the veiled picture above.

“Good!” he muttered; “I’ll slip in and out and she’ll never be a bit the wiser till she wakes and misses it in the morning”; and in another moment he was within the room, across the floor like a dark shadow, and grasping the prize in his hands.

During this short interval, and at every step, he had listened with strange attention to the breathing of the sleeping woman; but now, while he fumbled in his pocket for the anonymous note to leave in place of the picture, a sudden flutter—a stop-page of the steady breathing and a waking sigh—caught his ear, and almost made his heart stand still. He stood there motionless as a statue, and not daring to breathe; but it was only for an instant.

The mischief was done. The eyes of the old woman were open, and staring with rousing intelligence at the dim figure against the twinkling light of the fire, and in another moment there was a great scream echoing through the room as she sprang up and threw herself upon the intruder.

“Curses on it, leave go!” he hissed, striving in vain to loosen the desperate grasp of her fingers from the picture—“leave go, I say, or it’ll be worse for you.”

“Never, though you should kill me on the spot,” cried the poor mother, clinging to her one treasure with all her strength. “Help! help! thieves! murder! A-h-h!”

Her last exclamation was a groan, which died away in a faint sigh as she dropped like a stone unheeded on the floor. One crash of the cruel neddy had stilled her cries and loosened her grasp, and the picture dropped heavily on the floor, with the crape veil torn away in shreds, and the beautiful gilt frame being rapidly stained and dabbled with her blood.

“She would have it,” whispered Coreing Jim, in hushed and awful tones, as he listened breathlessly for any sounds of alarm from below. “Yet I’m sorry I did it, though I don’t know why. Now for the picture, and then I’m off.”

He stooped to grope for the picture, and in doing so turned back the slide of the dark lantern he carried; and the crape having been torn off in the struggle, the strong glare of light fell full on the beautiful picture.

But why did he start and shiver and gaze at the beautiful and innocent young features with his eyes starting from their sockets, with every nerve and muscle in his frame petrified into rigidity, and with his heart suddenly ceasing to beat within him? Why did he utter a piercing groan, as if his very heart had been torn from his breast, and sink on his knees and try to raise the poor woman in his arms, heedless of the warning tramp of footsteps below?

“My mother!” he hoarsely quivered forth. “O God! I have killed my own mother!” and then in a paroxysm of grief, he tried to kiss the oozing blood from the pale brow of the stricken woman, wildly chafing her hands in his own, and striving by every endearing term to call her back to sensibility; and for a moment it appeared as if he were likely to succeed. Mrs. Lyons opened her eyes with a faint moan, and gazed wildly in his face; but there came no recognition.

“Mother! mother!” he almost screamed. “It is Jimmy—your own wee Jim.”

“My wee Jim?” she faintly and dreamily echoed. “No, no, you are not he; for he is dead—lost to God and man!” and then with a faint sigh she relapsed into insensibility; and at the same moment the door