pulse of your loving heart! And did ever a girl love a father as she
loved you, till the destroyer came across her--ay, the destroyer that
left us as we now are, sunk in sorrow and misery that will never end in
this world more! And now, what is she, and what has the destroyer made
her? O, when I think of how you sought after her you loved as you did,
to take her life, and when I think of how she that loved you as she
did was forced to fly from the hand that would pluck out your own heart
sooner than injure a hair of her head--so long as she was innocent--O,
when I think of all this, and look upon you lying there now, and all for
the love you bore her, how can my heart bear it, and how can I live. O,
the destroyer, the villain! the devil! what has he wrought upon us!
But, thank God, he is punished--the father's love punished him. They are
liars! you are no murderer. The mother's heart within me tells me that
you did what was right--you acted like a man, my husband. God bless
you, and make your soul happy for its love to Nannie. I'll kiss you,
Harry--I'll kiss you, my heart's treasure, for your noble deed--but O
Harry, you don't know the lips of sorrow that kiss! you now. Sure they
are the lips of your own Rose, that gave her young heart to you, and was
happy for it. Don't feel ashamed, Harry; it's a good man's case to die
the death you did, and be at rest, as I hope you are, for you are not a
murderer; and if you are, it is only in the eye of the law, and it was
your love for Nannie that did it."

This woeful dirge of the mother's heart, and the wife's sorrow, had
almost every eye in tears; and, indeed, it was impossible that the
sympathy for her should not be deep and general. They all knew the
excellence and mildness of her husband's character, and that every word
she uttered concerning him was truth.

In Irish wakehouses, it is to be observed, the door is never closed. The