to heaven, another to hell, and a third to purgatory. There was a dark
gulf between me and heaven, and a breach between me and purgatory that
I couldn't step across, and if I had missed my foot there, I would have
dropped into hell. So I would, too, only that the blessed Virgin put my
own scapular over the breach, and it became firm, and I stepped on it,
and got over. The Virgin then desired me to look into hell, and the
first person I saw was my own husband, standing with a green sod under
his feet! 'He got that favor,' said the blessed Virgin, 'in consequence
of the prayers of a holy priest, that had once been a poor scholar, that
he gave assistance to, at a collection made for him in such a chapel,'
says she, 'Then,' continued the sowl, 'Mary,' says she, 'but there's
some great change in the world since I died, or why would the people
live so long? It can't be less than six thousand years since I departed,
and yet I find every one of my friends just as I left them.'

"'Why,' replied the living sister, 'you're only six days dead.'

"'Ah, avourneen!' said the other, 'it can't be--it can't be! for I have
been thousands on thousands of years in pain!'--and as she spoke this
she disappeared.

"Now there's a proof of the pains of purgatory, where one day seems as
long as a thousand years; and you know we oughtn't to grudge a thrifle
to a fellow-crature, that we may avoid it. So you see, my friends,
there's nothing like good works. You know not when or where this lad's
prayers may benefit you. If he gets ordained, the first mass he says
will be for his benefactors; and in every one he celebrates after that,
they must also be remembered: the words are _pro omnibus benefactoribus
meis, per omnia secula secularum!_