e in religion."

"You speak like a Catholic, O'Brien."

"I am one," replied he. And here our conversation ended, for we were
close to the boat, which was waiting for us on the beach.

The next day a man-of-war brig arrived from England, bringing letters
for the squadron on the station. I had two from my sister Ellen which
made me very uncomfortable. She stated that my father had seen my uncle,
Lord Privilege, and had had high words with him; indeed, as far as she
could ascertain of the facts, my father had struck my uncle, and had
been turned out of the house by the servants; that he had returned in a
state of great excitement, and was very ill ever since; that there was a
great deal of talk in the neighbourhood on the subject, people generally
highly blaming my father's conduct, thinking that he was deranged in his
intellect--a supposition very much encouraged by my uncle. She again
expressed her hopes of my speedy return. I had now been absent nearly
three years, and she had been so uncomfortable that she felt as if it
had been at least ten. O'Brien also received a letter from Father
M'Grath, which I shall lay before the reader:--

"MY DEAR SON,--Long life, and all the blessings of all the saints be
upon you now and for evermore! Amen. And may you live to be married,
and may I dance at your wedding, and may you never want children, and
may they grow up as handsome as their father and their mother (whoever
she may hereafter be), and may you die of a good old age, and in the
true faith, and be waked handsomely, as your own father was last
Friday s'ennight, seeing as how he took it into his head to leave this
world for a better. It was a very dacent funeral-procession, my dear
Terence, and your father must have been delighted to see himself so
well attinded. No man ever made a more handsome corpse, considering
how old, and thin, and haggard he had grown of late, and how gray his
hair had turned. He held the nosegay between his fingers, across his
breast as natural as life, and reminded us all of the blessed saint,
Pope Gregory, who was called to glory some hundred years before either
you or I was born.

"Your mother's quite comfortable; and there she sits in her ould
chair, rocking to and fro all day long, and never speaking a word to
nobody, thinking about heaven, I dare to say; which is just what she
ought to do, seeing that she stands a very pretty chance of going
there in