han Brian does. Brian, my darling, come and kiss your own Torley that
keept you sleeping every night in his bosom, and never was properly
happy without you--kiss me when I can feel you, for I know that before
long, you will kiss me when I can't kiss you--Brian, my darling life,
how loth I am to lave you, and to lave you all, father--to lave you all,
mother."

As he spoke, and paused from time to time, the tumult of the storm
without, and the fury with which it swept against the roof, door,
and windows of the house, made a terrible diapason to the sweet and
affecting tone of feeling which pervaded the remarks of the dying
boy. His father, however, who felt an irrepressible dread of what was
expected to take place, started at the close of the last words, and
with a heart divided between the two terrors, stood in that stupefaction
which is only the resting-place of misery, where it takes breath and
strengthens itself for its greatest trials. Ho stood with one hand as
before, pressed upon his forehead, and pointed with the other to the
door. The wife, too, paused, for she could not doubt for a moment, that
she heard sounds mingling with those of the storm which belonged not to
it. It was Christmas eve!

"Stop, Mary," said he, the very current of his heart stilled--its
beating pulses frozen, as it were, by the terrible apprehension--"stop,
Mary; you can open the door, but in such a morning as this you couldn't
shut it, and the wind and drift would come in and fill the house, and
be the death of our boy. No, I must open the door myself, and it will
require all my strength to shut it."

"I hear it all, now," said Torley, "the cries and the shouting, the
screechings and the--well, you need not be afeared; put poor Brian in
with me, for I know there is no Irishman but will respect a death-bed,
be it landlord, or agent, ay, or bailey. Oh, no, father, the hand of
God is upon us, and if they respect nothing else, they will surely respect
that. They won't move me, mother, when they see me; for that would kill
me--that would be to murder a dying man."

The father made no reply, but rushed towards the door, which he opened
and closed after him with more ease than he had expected. The storm, in
fact, was subsiding; the small hard drift had ceased, and it was evident
from the appearance of the sky that there was likely to be a change for
the better.

It would, indeed, appear, as if the Divine Being actually restrained and
checked