"You desarve none for them words," said Fardorougha, who felt that Nogher's buffoonery jarred upon the better feelings that were rising within him,— you desarve none an' you'll get nonefor the present at least, an' I'm only a fool for spaking to you."

He then retired to the upper part of the kiln, where in a dark corner he knelt with a troubled heart, and prayed to God.

We doubt not but such readers as possess feeling will perceive that Fardorougha was not only an object at this particular period of much interest, but also entitled to sincere sympathy. Few men in his circumstances could or probably would so earnestly struggle with a predominant passion as he did, though without education, or such a knowledge of the world as might enable him, by any observation of the human heart in others, to understand the workings of his own. He had not been ten minutes at prayer when the voice of his female servant was heard in loud and exulting tones, calling out ere she approached the kiln itself

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Fardorougha, ca woul thu? Where's my footin', masther? Where's my arles? Come in-come in, you're a wantin' to kiss your son-the mistress is dyin' till you kiss your son."

The last words were uttered as she entered the kiln.

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Dyin'!" he repeated-"the mistress dyin'-oh Susy let a thousand childre go before her dyin'! did you say dyin'?"

Ay did I, an' it's truth too, but it's wid joy she's dyin' to see you kiss one o' the purtiest young boys in all the barony of Lisnamona-myself's

over head and ears in love wid him in ready."

He gave a rapid glance upwards, so much so, that it was scarcely perceptible, and immediately accompanied her into the house. The child in the meantime had been dressed, and lay on its mother's arm in the bed when its father entered. He approached the bedside and glanced at it-then at the mother who lay smiling beside it-she

extended her hand to him whilst the soft sweet tears of delight ran quietly down her cheeks. When he seized her hand he stooped to kiss her, but she put her other hand up and saidNo, no, you must kiss him first.”

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He instantly stooped over the babe, took it in his arms, looked long and earnestly upon it, put it up near him, again gave it a long intense gaze, after which he raised its little mouth to his own, and then imprinted the father's first kiss upon the fragrant lips of his beloved first-born. Having gently deposited the precious babe upon its mother's arm, he caught her hand and imprinted upon her lips a kiss ;-but to those who understand it we need not describe it-to those who 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 rason 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 dont 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 wont be as much in your heart now, nor your temper so dark as it was."

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other hand over his eyes, he sat in He made no reply; but placing his 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 any thing's to be had let them all be trated so as that they dont take too much-an' Mary Moan you wont 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.

"What!" said the midwife, "are you forgettin' the sthranger?"

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Nogher looked her full in the face, and opening his mouth, without saying a word, literally pitched the glass of spirits to the very bottom of his throat. Beggin' your pardon, ma'am," he replied, "is it three healths you'd have me dhrink wid the one glassful?not myself indeed; faix, I'd be long sorry to make so little of him-if he was a bit of a girsha I'd not scruple to give him a corner o' the glass, but, bein' a young man, althers the case intirely he must have a bumper for himself."

"A girsha!" said Peggy, his fellowservant, feeling the indignity just offered to her sex-" Why, thin, bad manners to your assurance for that same a girsha's as well intitled to a full glass as a gorsoon, any day.”

"Husth a colleen," said Nogher good-humouredly, "sure, it's takin' patthern by sich a fine example you ought to be. This, Mrs. Moan, is the purty crature I was mintionin' as we came along, that intinds to get spanshelled wid myself some o' these days that is, if she can bring me into good humour, the thief."

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Oh, is it all this?" exclaimed the sly girl; "faix, it 'ill make me hearty if I dhrink so much-bedeed it will. Well, misthress, your health, an' a speedy uprise to you-an' the same to the masther, not forgettin' the sthranger -long life an' good health to him."

She then put the glass to her lips, and after several small sips, appearing to be so many unsuccessful attempts at overcoming her reluctance to drink it, she at length took courage, and bolting

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Nobody says aginst that, Mrs. Moan," replied the other; "it's all fair, an' nothin' else.”

"A midwife's nuttin' in your eyes, we suppose," rejoined Mrs. Moan; "but maybe there's thim belongin' to you could tell to the conthrary."

"Oblaged to you, we suppose, for your sarvices-an' we're not denyin' that aither.”

"For me sarvices-maybe thim same sarvices warn't very sweet or treaclesome to some o' thim," she rejoined, with a mysterious and somewhat indignant toss of the head.

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I hird that myself afore," observed Nogher, "that she never dhrinks hard whisky. Well, myself never tasted punch but wanst, an' be goxty its great dhrink. Death alive, Honora More,” he continued, in his most insinuating manner, "make us all a sup. Sure, blood alive, this is not a common night, afther what God has sint us; Fardorougha himself would allow you, if he was here; deed, be dad, he as good as promised me he would; an' you know we have the young customer's health to dhrink yet."

Throth, an' you ought," said the midwife; "the boy says nuttin' but the

thruth-it's not a common night; an' if God has given Fardorougha substance, he shouldn't begridge a little, if it was only to show a grateful heart." - Well, well," said Honora More which means great Honora, in opposition to her daughter, Fardorougha's wife; this being an epithet adopted for the purpose of contra-distinguishing the members of a family when called by the same name-" Well," said she, I suppose it's as good. My own heart, dear knows, is not in a thrifle, only I have my doubts about Fardorougha. However, what's done can't be undone; so, once we mix it, he'll be too late spake if he comes in, any

way.”

The punch was accordingly mixed, and they were in the act of sitting down to enjoy themselves with more comfort when Fardorougha entered. As before, he was silent and disturbed, neither calm nor stern, but labouring, one would suppose, under strong feelings of a decidedly opposite character. On seeing the punch made, his brow gathered into something like severity: he looked quickly at his mother-in-law, and was about to speak, but, pausing a moment, he sat down, and after a little time said in a kind voice

“It's right, it's right-for his sake, an' on his account, have it; but, Honora, let there be no waste."

"Sure we had to make it for Mrs. Moan whether or not," said his motherin-law—“ she can't dhrink it hard, poor woman."

Mrs. Moan, who had gone to see her patient, having heard his voice again, made her appearance with the child in her arms, and with all the importance which such a burthen usually bestows upon persons of her calling, "Here," said she, presenting him the infant, "take a proper look at this fellow. That I may never, if a finer swaddy ever cross'd my hands. Throth if you wor dead tomorrow he'd be mistaken for you your born image-the sorra thing else—eh alanna—the Lord love my son-faix you've daddy's nose upon you any how-an' his chin to a turn. Oh thin, Fardorougha, but there's many a couple rowlin' in wealth that 'ud be proud to have the like's of him; au that must die an let it all go to strangers, or to them that doesn't care about them, 'ceptin' to get grabbin' at what they have, an' that think every day a year that they're above the sod. What! manim-an-kiss your child, man alive. That I may never, but he

looks at the darlin' as if it was a sod of turf. Throth you're not worthy of havin' such a bully."

Fardorougha, during this dialogue, held the child in his arms and looked upon it earnestly as before, but without betraying any visible indication of countenance that could enable a spectator to estimate the nature of what passed within him. At length there appeared in his eye a barely perceptible expression of benignity, which, however, soon passed away, and was replaced by a shadow of gloom and anxiety. Nevertheless in compliance, with the commands of the midwife, he kissed its lips, after which the servants all gathered round it, each lavishing upon the little urchin those hyperbolical expressions of flattery, which after all most parents are willing to receive as something approximating to Gospel truth.

"Be dad," said Nogher, "that fellow 'ill be the flower o' the Donovans, if God spares him-be goxty I'll engage he'll give the purty girls many a sore heart yet-he'll play the dickens wid 'em or I'm not bere—a wough! do you hear how the young rogue gives tongue at that; the sorra one o' the shaver but knows what I'm sayin'."

Nogher always had an eye to his own comfort, no matter under what circumstances he might be placed. Having received the full glass, he grasped his master's hand, and in the usual set phrases to which, however, was added, much extempore matter of his own, he drank the baby's health, congratulating the parents in his own blunt way, upon this accession to their happiness. The other servants continued to pour out their praises in terms of delight and astonishment at his accomplishments and beauty, each, in imitation of Nogher, concluding with a toast in nearly the same words.

How sweet from all other lips is the praise of those we love! Fardorougha who, a moment before, looked upon his infant's face with an unmoved countenance, felt incapable of withstanding the flattery of his own servants when uttered in favour of the child. His eye became complacent, and while Nogher held his hand, a slight pressure in return was proof sufficient that his heart beat in accordance with the hopes they expressed of all that the undeveloped future might bestow upon him.

When their little treat was over the servants withdrew for the night, and Fardorougha himself, still labour

ing under an excitement so complicated and novel, retired rather to shape his mind to some definite tone of feeling than to seek repose.

How strange is life, and how mysteriously connected is the woe or the weal of a single family with the great mass of human society. We beg the reader to stand with us upon a low, sloping hill, a little to the left of Fardorougha's house, and, after having solemnized his heart by a glance at the starry gospel of the skies, to cast his eye upon the long whitewashed dwell ing, as it shines faintly in the visionary distance of a moonlight night. How full of tranquil beauty is the hour, and how deep the silence, except when it is broken by the loud baying of the watch-dog, as he barks in sullen fierceness at his own echo ; or perhaps there is nothing heard but the sugh of the mountain river, as with booming sound it rises and falls in the distance filling the ear of midnight with its wild and continuous melody. Look around and observe the spirit of repose which sleeps on the face of nature, think upon the dream of human life, and of all the inexplicable wonders which are read from day to day in that miraculous page-the heart of man. Neither your eye nor imagination need pass beyond that humble roof before you, in which it is easy to perceive by the lights passing at this unusual hour across the windows, that there is something added either to their joy or to their sorrow. There is the mother, in whose heart was accumulated the unwasted tenderness of years, forgetting. all the past in the first intoxicating influence of an unknown ecstacy, and looking to the future with the eager aspirations of affection. There is the husband too, whose heart the lank devil of the avaricious-the famine-struck god of the miser, is even now contending with the almost extinguished love which springs up in a father's bosom on the sight of his first-born.

Reader, who can tell whether the entrancing visions of the happy mother, or the gloomy anticipations of her apprehensive husband, are more prophetic of the destiny which is before their child. Many indeed and various are the hopes and fears felt under that roof, and deeply will their lights and shadows be blended in the life of the being whose claims are so strong upon their love. There; for some time past the lights in the window have appeared less frequently, one by one we presume

the inmates have gone to repose, no other is now visible, the last candle is extinguished, and this humble section of the great family of man is now at rest with the veil of a dark and fearful future unlifted before them.

There is not perhaps in the series of human passions any one so difficult to be eradicated out of the bosom as avarice, no matter with what seeming moderation it puts itself forth, or under what disguise it may appear. And among all its cold-blooded characteristics there is none so utterly unaccountable as that frightful dread of famine and ultimate starvation which is also strong in proportion to the impossibility of its ever being realized. Indeed when it arrives to this we should not term it a passion but a malady, and in our opinion the narrow-hearted patient should be prudently separated from society, and treated as one labouring under an incurable species of monomania.

During the few days that intervened between our hero's birth and his christening, Fardorougha's mind was engaged in forming some fixed principle by which to guide his heart in the conflict that still went on between avarice and affection. In this task he imagined that the father predominated over the miser almost without a strug gle, whereas, the fact was, that the subtle passion, ever more ingenious than the simple one, changed its external character, and came out in the shape of affectionate forecast and provident regard for the wants and prospects of his child. This gross deception of his own heart he felt as a relief, for, though smitten with the world, it did not escape him that the birth of his little one, all its circumstances considered, ought to have caused him to feel an enjoyment unalloyed by the care and regret which checked his sympathies as a parent. Neither was conscience itself altogether silent, nor the blunt remonstrances of his servants wholly without effect. Nay, so completely was his judgment over-reached that he himself attributed this anomalous state of feeling to a virtuous effort of Christian duty, and looked upon the encroachments which a desire of saving wealth had made on his heart as a manifest proof of much parental attachment. He consequently loved his wealth through the medium of his son, and laid it down as a fixed principle that every act of parsi mony on his part was merely one of