this manner they lived upwards of thirteen years, when Mrs.
Donovan declared herself to be in that situation which in due time
rendered the services of Mary Moan necessary.

From the moment this intimation was! given, and its truth confirmed, a
faint light, not greater than the dim and trembling lustre of a single
star, broke in upon the darkened affections and worldly spirit
of Fardorougha Donovan. Had the announcement taken place within a
reasonable period after his marriage, before he had become sick of
disappointment, or had surrendered his heart from absolute despair to an
incipient spirit of avarice, it would no doubt have been hailed with all
the eager delight of unblighted hope and vivid affection; but now a
new and subtle habit had been superinduced, after the last cherished
expectation of the heart had departed; a spirit of foresight and severe
calculation descended on him, and had so nearly saturated his whole
being, that he could not for some time actually determine whether the
knowledge of his wife's situation was more agreeable to his affection,
or repugnant to the parsimonious disposition which had quickened his
heart into an energy incompatible with natural benevolence, and the
perception of those tender ties which spring up from the relations of
domestic life. For a considerable time this struggle between the two
principles went on; sometimes a new hope would spring up, attended in
the background by a thousand affecting circumstances--on the other hand,
some gloomy and undefinable dread of exigency, distress, and ruin,
would wring his heart and sink his spirits down to positive misery.
Notwithstanding this conflict between growing avarice and affection,
the star of the father's love had risen, and though, as we have already
said, its light was dim and unsteady, yet the moment a single opening
occurred in the clouded mind, there it was to be seen serene and pure,
a beautiful emblem of undying and solitary affection struggling with
the cares and angry passions of life. By degrees, however, the
husband's heart became touched by the hopes of his younger years,
former associations revived, and remembrances of past tenderness, though
blunted in a heart so much changed, came over him like the breath
of fragrance that has nearly passed away. He began, therefore, to
contemplate the event without foreboding, and by the time the looked-for
period arrived, if the world and its debasing influences were not
utterly