The next day, his wife renewed the subject with unabated anxiety; but,
instead of expressing any change in her favor, Fardorougha declined even
to enter into it at all. An evasive reply was all she could extract from
him, with an assurance that he would in a day or two communicate the
resolution to which he had finally come. She perceived, at once, that
the case was hopeless, and, after one last ineffectual attempt to bring
him round, she felt herself forced to abandon it. The child, therefore,
much to the mother's mortification, was baptized without a christening,
unless the mere presence of the godfather and godmother, in addition to
Fardorougha's own family, could be said to constitute one.

Our readers, perhaps, are not aware that a cause of deep anxiety,
hitherto unnoticed by us, operated with latent power upon Fardorougha's
heart. But so strong in Ireland is the beautiful superstition--if it can
with truth be termed so--that children are a blessing only when received
as such, that, even though supported by the hardest and most shameless
of all vices, avarice, Fardorougha had not nerve to avow this most
unnatural source for his distress. The fact, however, was, that, to a
mind so constituted, the apprehension of a large family was in itself
a consideration, which he thought might, at a future period of their
lives, reduce both him and his to starvation and death. Our readers may
remember Nogher M'Cormick's rebuke to him, when he heard Fardorougha
allude to this; and so accessible was he then to the feeling, that, on
finding his heart at variance with it, he absolutely admitted his error,
and prayed to God that he might be enabled to overcome it.

It was, therefore, on the day after the baptism of young Connor, for
so had the child been called after his paternal grandfather, that, as a
justification for his own conduct in the matter of the christening,