cannot,
we could give no adequate notion of that which we are able in no other
way to describe than by saying that it would seem as if the condensed
enjoyment of a whole life were concentrated into that embrace of the
child and mother.

When this tender scene was over, the midwife commenced--

"Well, if ever a man had raison to be thank--"

"Silence, woman!" he exclaimed in a voice which hushed her almost into
terror.

"Let him alone," said the wife, addressing her, "let him alone, I know
what he feels."

"No," he replied, "even you, Honora, don't know it--my heart, my heart
went astray, and there, undher God and my Saviour, is the being that
will be the salvation of his father."

His wife understood him and was touched; the tears fell fast from her
eyes, and, extending her hand to him, she said, as he clasped it:

"Sure, Fardorougha, the world won't be as much in your heart now, nor
your temper so dark as it was."

He made no reply; but, placing his other hand over his eyes, he sat
in that posture for some minutes. On raising his head the tears were
running as if involuntarily down his cheeks.

"Honora," said he, "I'll go out for a little--you can tell Mary Moan
where anything's to be had--let them all be trated so as that they don't
take too much--and, Mary Moan, you won't be forgotten."

He then passed out, and did not appear for upwards of an hour, nor could
any one of them tell where he had been.

"Well," said Honora, after he had left the room, "we're now married near
fourteen years; and until this night I never see him shed a tear."

"But sure, acushla, if anything can touch a father's heart, the sight
of his first child will. Now keep yourself aisy, avourneen, and tell
me where the whiskey an' anything else that may be a wantin' is, till I
give these crathurs of sarvints a dhrop of something to comfort thim."

At this time, however, Mrs. Donovan's mother and two sisters, who had
some hours previously been sent for, just arrived, a circumstance which
once more touched the newly awakened chord of the mother's heart, and
gave her that confidence which the presence of "one's own blood," as
the people expressed it, always communicates upon such occasions. After
having kissed and admired the babe, and bedewed its face with the warm
tears of affection, they piously knelt down, as is the custom among most
Irish families, and offered up a short but fervent prayer of gratitude
as well for an event so happy