will you, for her own sake, when I am gone, comfort and support her,
and raise her heart, if possible, out of this heavy throuble?"

Her brother gazed on him with a melancholy smile, in which might be read
both admiration and sympathy.

"Do you think it possible that I would, or could omit to cherish
and sustain poor Una, under such thrying circumstances! Everything
considered, however, your words are only natural--only natural."

"Don't let her think too much about it," continued O'Donovan. "Bring
her out as much as you can--let her not be much by herself. But this is
folly in me," he added; "you know yourself better than I can instruct
you how to act."

"God knows," replied the brother, struck and softened by the mournful
anxiety for her welfare which Connor expressed, "God knows that all you
say, and all I can think of besides, shall be done for our dear girl--so
make your mind easy."

"I thank you," replied the other; "from my soul an' from the bottom of
my heart, I thank you. Endeavor to make her forget me, if you can; an'
when this passes away out of her mind, she may yet be happy--a happy
wife and a happy mother--an' she can then think of her love for Connor
O'Donovan, only as a troubled dream that she had in her early life."

"Connor," said the other, "this is not right--you must be firmer;" but
as he uttered the words of reproof, the tears almost came to his eyes.

"As for my part," continued Connor, "what is the world to me now, that
I've lost her? It is--it is a hard and a dark fate, but why it should
fall upon us I do not know. It's as much as I can do to bear it as I
ought."

"Well, well," replied John, "don't dwell too much on it. I have
something else to speak to you about."

"Dwell on it!" returned the other; "as God is above me, she's not one
minute out of my thoughts; an' I tell you, I'd rather be dead this
minute, than forget her. Her memory now is the only happiness that is
left to me--my only wealth in this world."

"No," said John, "it is not. Connor, I have now a few words to say to
you, and I know they will prove whether you are as generous as you are
said to be; and whether your love for iny sister is truly tender and
disinterested. You have it now in your power to ease her heart very much
of a heavy load of concern which she feels on your account. Your father,
you know, is now a ruined man, or I should say a poor man. You are going
out under circumstances the most painful. In the cou