hat it's
only a sudden attack that will pass away."

"Do so, Kathleen," said her mother; "and you can fetch us word how she
is. May the Lord bring her safe over it at any rate; for surely the
family will break their hearts afther her, an' no wondher, for where was
her fellow?"

Bryan was not capable of hearing these praises, which he knew to be
so well and so justly her due, with firmness; nor could he prevent his
tears, unless by a great effort, from bearing testimony to the depth
of his grief. Kathleen's gaze, however, was turned on him with an
expression which gave him strength; for indeed there was something noble
and. sustaining in the earnest and consoling sympathy which he read in
her dark and glorious eye. On their way to Carriglass there was little
spoken. Bryan's eye every now and then sought that of Kathleen; and
he learned, for the first time, that it is only in affliction that the
exquisite tenderness of true and disinterested love can be properly
appreciated and felt. Indeed he wondered at his own sensations; for
in proportion as his heart became alarmed at the contemplation of his
mother's loss, he felt, whenever he looked upon Kathleen, that it also
burned towards her with greater tenderness and power--so true is it
that sorrow and suffering purify and exalt all our nobler and better
emotions.

Bryan and his companions, ere they had time to reach the house, were
seen and. recognized by the family, who, from the restlessness and
uncertainty which illness usually occasions, kept moving about and
running out from time to time to watch the arrival of the priest or
doctor. On this occasion Dora came to meet them; but, alas! with what
a different spirit from that which animated her on the return of her
father from the metropolis. Her gait was now slow, her step languid;
and they could perceive that, as she approached them, she wiped away the
tears. Indeed her whole appearance was indicative of the state of
her mother; when they met her, her bitter sobbing and the sorrowful
earnestness of manner with which she embraced the sisters, wore
melancholy assurances that the condition of the sufferer was not
improved. Hanna joined her tears with hers; but Kathleen, whose sweet
voice in attempting to give the affectionate girl consolation, was more
than once almost shaken out of its firmness, did all she could to soothe
and relieve her.

On entering the house, they found a number of the neighboring females
assembl