O'Conner now came forward and testified his readiness to go all the
world over to serve a comrade.

Words could but poorly convey an idea of the looks of the anxious
couple, as they watched the varying countenance of the Captain. The
situation of the soldier and his wife touched him to the quick, and
the appeal proved irresistible. Jem O'Connor was permitted to go
instead of Pat. Morgan, who, triumphantly led off his wife, both of
them invoking blessings on his head, whose humanity had thus spared
them the pangs of separation.

I stood, perhaps, twenty minutes musing on the scenes that had just
been passing before me and was returning, to retrace my steps to the
inn breakfast, when I noticed a wretched looking woman, with a baby in
her arms. She was walking very fast, towards the water's edge, where
the boats were still waiting to take the last of the soldiers on board
ship. She had an anxious, nay, a despairing look as she looked around,
as I judged, for the Captain, who was not to be seen.

Hushing her little one, whose piteous cry would almost have made one
think it was uttered in sympathy with its mother's distress. Casting
one more despairing glance, she was, apparently, about to retrace her
weary steps with a look that completely baffles description, when her
eye fell on a boat returning from the vessel, which that moment neared
the water's edge, and she saw Captain Ormsby jump out. Hastily going
up to him, she exclaimed, in a tone that seemed almost to forbid
comfort.

"Oh, Sir, I am ashamed to be so troublesome, indeed I am, and I fear
to ask you if I have any chance this time?"