which occasioned
it; and what a trial was that for a single heart! From time to time a
deep back-drawing sob would proceed from her lips, and the eye was again
fixed upon the still and unconscious features of her husband. At length
the chord was touched, and the heart of the wife and mother could
restrain itself no longer. The children had been for some time
whispering together, evidently endeavoring to keep the youngest of them
still; but they found it impossible--he must go to awaken his daddy.
This was too much for them, and the poor things burst out into an
uncontrollable wail of sorrow. The conversation among the spectators was
immediately hushed; but the mother started to her feet, and turning to
the bed, bent over it, and raised a cry of agony such as I never heard
nor hope ever to hear again. She clapped her hands, and rocking herself
up and down over him, gave vent to her accumulated grief, which now
rushed like a torrent that had been dammed up and overcome its barriers,
from her heart.

"O Harry," said she in Irish--but we translate it--"O Harry, the husband
of the kind heart, the loving father, and the good man! O Harry, Harry,
and is it come to this with you and me and our childre! They may say
what they will, but you're not a murderer. It was your love for our
unfortunate Nannie that made you do what you did. O, what was the world
to you without her! Wasn't she the light of your eyes, and the sweet
pulse of your loving heart! And did ever a girl love a father as she
loved you, till the destroyer came across her--ay, the destroyer that
left us as we now are, sunk in sorrow and misery that will never end in
this world more! And now, what is she, and what has the destroyer made
her? O, when I think of how you sought after her you loved as you did,
to take her life, and when I think of how she that loved you as she
did was forced to fly from the hand that would pluck out your own heart
sooner than injure a hair of her head--so long as she was innocent--O,
when I think of all this, and look upon you lying there now, and all for
the love you bore her, how can my heart bear it, and how can I live. O,
the destroyer, the villain! the devil! what has he wrought upon us!
But, thank God, he is punished--the father's love punished him. They are
liars! you are no murderer. The mother's heart within me tells me that
you did what was right--you acted like a man, my husband. God bless
you, and make your soul happy for its