and
windy; but as far as could be supposed by those who heard them cheerful
and amiable. Over the loudness of their dialogue might be heard, from
time to time, at a great distance, the song of the drunken melodist just
alluded to, rising into those desperate tones which borrow their drowsy
energy from intoxication alone. Such was the character of those who
accompanied the miser home; and such were the indications conveyed
to the ears or eyes of I those who either saw or heard them, as they
approached Fardorougha's dwelling, where the unsleeping heart of
the mother watched--and oh! with what a dry and burning anguish of
expectation, let our readers judge--for the life or death of the only
child that God had ever vouchsafed to that loving heart on which to rest
all its tenderest hopes and affections.

The manner in which Honor O'Donovan spent that day was marked by
an earnest and simple piety that would have excited high praise and
admiration if witnessed in a person of rank or consideration in society.
She was, as the reader may remember, too ill to be able to attend the
trial of her son, or as she herself expressed it in Irish, to draw
strength to her heart by one look at his manly face; by one glance from
her boy's eye. She resolved, however, to draw consolation from a higher
source, and to rest the burden of her sorrows, as far as in her lay,
upon that being in whose hands are the issues of life and death. From
the moment her husband left the threshold of his childless house on that
morning until his return, her prayers to God and the saints were truly
incessant. And who is so well acquainted with the inscrutable ways of
the Almighty, as to dare assert that the humble supplications of this
pious and sorrowful mother were not heard and answered? Whether it was
owing to the fervor of an imagination wrought upon by the influence of
a creed which nourishes religious enthusiasm in an extraordinary degree,
or whether it was by direct support from that God who compassionated her
affliction, let others determine; but certain it is, that in the
course of that day she gained a calmness and resignation, joined to an
increasing serenity of heart, such as she had not hoped to feel under a
calamity so black and terrible.

On hearing the approach of the car which bore her husband home, and on
listening to the noisy mirth of those, who, had they been sober, would
have sincerely respected her grief, she put up an inward prayer of
th