orrow of many, a feeling of awful
sympathy with that individual whose love for the object has been, the
greatest, and whose loss is of course the most irreparable. So was it
with the M'Mahons. Thomas M'Mahon himself could not bear to witness the
sufferings of his wife, nor to hear her moans. He accordingly left the
house, and walked about the garden and farm-yard, in a state little
short of actual distraction. When the last scene was over, and her
actual sufferings closed for ever, the outrage of grief among his
children became almost hushed from a dread of witnessing the sufferings
of their father; and for the time a great portion of their own sorrow
was merged in what they felt for him. Nor was this feeling confined
to themselves. His neighbors and acquaintances, on hearing of Mrs.
M'Mahon's death, almost all exclaimed:--

"Oh, what will become of him? they are nothing an will forget her soon,
as is natural, well as they loved her; but poor Tom, oh! what on earth
will become of him?" Every eye, however, now turned toward Bryan, who
was the only one of the family possessed of courage enough to undertake
the task of breaking the heart-rending intelligence to their bereaved
father.

"It must be done," he said, "and the sooner it's done the better; what
would I give to have my darlin' Kathleen here. Her eye and her advice
would give me the strength that I stand so much in need of. My God, how
will I meet him, or break the sorrowful tidings to him at all! The Lord
support me!"

"Ah, but Bryan," said they, "you know he looks up to whatever you say,
and how much he is advised by you, if there happens to be a doubt about
anything. Except her that's gone, there was no one--"

Bryan raised his hand with an expression of resolution and something
like despair, in order as well as he could to intimate to them, that he
wished to hear no allusion made to her whom they had lost, or that he
must become incapacitated to perform the task he had to encounter, and
taking his hat he proceeded to find his father, whom he met behind the
garden.

It may be observed of deep grief, that whenever it is excited by the
loss of what is good and virtuous, it is never a solitary passion, we
mean within the circle of domestic life. So far from that, there is not
a kindred affection under the influence of a virtuous heart, that is not
stimulated, and strengthened by its emotions. How often, for instance,
have two members of the same family rushed