pride.

The youth was then in a serious mood, free from all the dominion of that
learned mania under which he had so frequently signalized himself: the
sorrow of his father, and a consciousness of the deep affection and
unceasing kindness which he had ever experienced from him, joined to
a recollection of their former friendly disputes and companionship,
touched Denny to the quick. But the humility with which he applied
to him the epithet sir, touched him most. What! thought he--ought my
affectionate father to be thrown to such a distance from a son, who
owes everything to his love and goodness! The thought of his stooping so
humbly before him smote the boy's heart, and the tears glistened in his
eyes.

"Father," said he, "you have been kind and good to me, beyond my
deserts; surely then I cannot bear to hear you address me in that
manner, as if we were both strangers. Nor while I am with you, shall
any of you so address me. Remember that I am still your son and their
brother."

The natural affection displayed in this speech soon melted the whole
family into tears--not excepting Denis himself, who felt that grief
which we experience when about to be separated for the first time from
those we love.

"Come over, avourneen," said his mother, drying her eyes with the corner
of her check apron: "come over, _acushla machree_, an' sit beside me:
sure although we're sorry for you, Denis, it's proud our hearts are of
you, an' good right we have, a sullish! Come over, an let me be near you
as long as I can, any way."

Denis placed himself beside her, and the proud mother drew his head over
upon her bosom, and bedewed his face with a gush of tears.

"They say," she observed, "that it's sinful to shed tears when there's
no occasion for grief; but I hope it's no sin to cry when one's heart is
full of somethin' that brings them to one's eyes, whether they will or
not."

"Mave," said the father, "I'll miss him more nor any of you: but sure
he'll often send letters to us from Maynewth, to tell us now he's
gettin' on; an' we'll be proud enough, never fear."

"You'll miss me, Denis," said his favorite sister, who was also called
Susan; "for you'll find no one in Maynewth that will keep your linen so
white as I did: but never fear, I'll be always knittin' you stockings;
an' every year I'll make you half-a-dozen shirts, and you'll think them
more natural nor other shirts, when you know they came from your own
home--from them tha