the hunger off o' me; but it's poor Mary, here, now recoverin' from the
sickness, that I pity; don't cry, Mary, dear; come here, darlin', come
here, and turn up that ould creel, and sit down beside me. It's useless
to bid you not to cry, avourneen machree, bekaise we all know what
you feel; but you have one comfort--you are innocent--so are you
all--there's nothing on any of your minds--no dark thought to lie upon
your heart--oh, no, no; an' if it was only myself that was to suffer, I
could bear it; but to see them that's innocent sufferin' along wid me,
is what kills me. This is the hand of God that's upon us, an' that will
be upon us, an' that has been upon us, an' I knew it would be so;
for ever since that black night, the thought--the thought of what
happened!--ay, it's that that's in me, an' upon me--it's that that has
put wrinkles in my cheek before their time, an' that has made my hair
white before its time, and that has--"

"Con, dear," observed his wife, "I never wished you to be talkin' of
that before them; sure you did as much as a man could do; you repented,
an' were sorry for it, an' what more could be expected from you?"

"Father, dear," said Mary, drying, or struggling to dry her tears,
"don't think of me, or of any of us, nor don't think of anything that
will disturb your mind--don't think of the, at any rate--I'm very
weak, but I'm not so hungry as you may think; if I had one mouthful
of anything just to take this feelin' that I have inwardly, an' this
weakness away, I would be satisfied--that would do me; an' although
I'm cryin' it's more to see your misery, father dear, an' all your
miseries, than for what I'm sufferin' myself; but there's a kiss for
you, it's all I have to give you."

"Mary, dear," said her sister, smote to the heart by her words, "you're
sufferin' more than any of us, you an' my father," and she encircled
her lovingly and mournfully in her arms as she spoke, and kissed her
wan lips, after which she went to the old man, and said in a voice of
compassion and consolation that was calculated to soothe any hearers--

"Oh, father, dear, if you could only banish all uneasy thoughts from
your mind--if you could only throw that darkness that's so often over
you, off you, we could bear anything--anything--Oh, anything, if we seen
you aisy in your mind, an' happy!"

Mrs. Dalton had dried her tears, and sat upon a low stool musing and
silent, and apparently revolving in her mind the best