ornint me,
avick machree, that, for the short time you're to be with me, I may
have you before my eyes. Husth now, a colleen machree, an' remimber your
promise. Where's the stringth you said you'd show?"

She then gazed with a long look of love and sorrow upon the fine
countenance of her manly son, and nature would be no longer restrained--

"Let me lay my head upon your breast," said she; "I'm attemptin' too
much--the mother's heart will give out the mother's voice--will speak
the mother's sorrow! Oh, my son, my son, my darlin', manly son--are you
lavin' your lovin' mother for evermore, for evermore?"

She was overcome; placing her head upon his bosom, her grief fell into
that beautiful but mournful wail with which, in Ireland, those of her
sex weep over the dead.

Indeed, the scene assumed a tenderness, from this incident, which was
inexpressibly affecting, inasmuch as the cry of death was but little out
of place when bewailing that beloved boy, whom, by the stern decree of
law, she was never to see again.

Connor kissed her pale cheek and lips, and rained down a flood of
bitter tears upon her face; and Una, borne away by the enthusiasm of her
sorrow, threw her arms also around her, and wept aloud.

At length, after having, in some degree, eased her heart, she sat up,
and with that consideration and good sense for which she had ever been
remarkable, said--

"Nature must have its way; an' surely, within reason, it's not sinful,
seein' that God himself has given us the feelin's of sorrow, whin thim
that we love is lavin' us--lavin' us never, never to see them agin. It's
only nature, afther all; and now ma colleen dhas"--

Her allusion to the final separation of those who love--or, in her
own words, "to the feelin's of sorrow, whin thim that we love is lavin
us"--was too much for the heart and affections of the fair girl at her
side, whose grief now passed all the bounds which her previous attempts
at being firm had prescribed to it.

[Illustration: PAGE 282-- O'Donovan took the beloved one in his arms]

O'Donovan took the beloved one in his arms, and, in the long embrace
which ensued, seldom were love and sorrow so singularly and mournfully
blended.

"I don't want to prevent you from cryin' a colleen machree; for I know
it will lighten an' aise your heart," said Honor; "but remimber your
wakeness an' your poor health; an', Connor avourneen, don't you--if you
love her--don't forget the state her health's in