was God, I hope, put this plan into my head; an' the money
yestherday--that, too, was so lucky--far more so, Connor dear, than you
think. Only for that--but sure no matther, Connor, we're not partin' for
evermore now; so acushla machree, let your mind be aisy. Cheer up, cheer
up my darlin' son."

Much more conversation of this kind took place between them during
the old man's stay, which he prolonged almost to the last hour. Connor
wondered, as was but natural, what the plan so recently fallen upon by
his father could be. Indeed, sometimes, he feared that the idea of their
separation had shaken his intellect, and that his allusions to this
mysterious discovery, mixed up, as they were, with the uncommon delight
he expressed at having recovered Cusack's money, boded nothing less than
the ultimate derangement of his faculties. One thing, however, seemed
obvious--that, whatever it might be, whether reasonable or otherwise,
his father's mind was exclusively occupied by it; and that, during the
whole scene of their parting, it sustained him in a manner for which he
felt it utterly impossible to account. It is true he did not leave him
without shedding tears, and bitter tears; but they were unaccompanied
by the wild vehemence of grief which had, on former occasions, raged
through and almost desolated his heart. The reader may entertain some
notion of what he would have felt on this occasion, were it not for the
"plan" as he called it, which supported him so much, when we tell him
that he blessed his son three or four times dining their interview,
without being conscious; that he had blessed him more than once. His
last words to him were to keep up his spirits, for that there was little
doubt that they would meet again.

The next morning, at daybreak, "their noble boy," as they fondly and
proudly called him, was conveyed, to the transport, in company with many
others; and at the hour of five o'clock p. m., that melancholy vessel
weighed anchor, and spread her broad sails to the bosom of the ocean.

Although the necessary affairs of life are, after all, the great
assuager of sorrow, yet there are also cases where the heart persists in
rejecting the consolation brought by time, and in clinging to the memory
of that which it loved. Neither Honor O'Donovan nor Una O'Brien could
forget our unhappy hero, nor school their affections into the apathy of
ordinary feelings. Of Fardorougha we might say the same; for, although
he probably