Her brother gazed on him with a melancholy smile, in which might be read both admiration and sympathy.

“Do you think it possible that I would, or could omit to cherish and sustain poor Una, under such thrying circumstances!  Everything considered, however, your words are only natural—­only natural.”

“Don’t let her think too much about it,” continued O’Donovan.  “Bring her out as much as you can—­let her not be much by herself.  But this is folly in me,” he added; “you know yourself better than I can instruct you how to act.”

“God knows,” replied the brother, struck and softened by the mournful anxiety for her welfare which Connor expressed, “God knows that all you say, and all I can think of besides, shall be done for our dear girl—­so make your mind easy.”

“I thank you,” replied the other; “from my soul an’ from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.  Endeavor to make her forget me, if you can; an’ when this passes away out of her mind, she may yet be happy—­a happy wife and a happy mother—­an’ she can then think of her love for Connor O’Donovan, only as a troubled dream that she had in her early life.”

“Connor,” said the other, “this is not right—­you must be firmer;” but as he uttered the words of reproof, the tears almost came to his eyes.

“As for my part,” continued Connor, “what is the world to me now, that I’ve lost her?  It is—­it is a hard and a dark fate, but why it should fall upon us I do not know.  It’s as much as I can do to bear it as I ought.”

“Well, well,” replied John, “don’t dwell too much on it.  I have something else to speak to you about.”

“Dwell on it!” returned the other; “as God is above me, she’s not one minute out of my thoughts; an’ I tell you, I’d rather be dead this minute, than forget her.  Her memory now is the only happiness that is left to me—­my only wealth in this world.”

“No,” said John, “it is not.  Connor, I have now a few words to say to you, and I know they will prove whether you are as generous as you are said to be; and whether your love for iny sister is truly tender and disinterested.  You have it now in your power to ease her heart very much of a heavy load of concern which she feels on your account.  Your father, you know, is now a ruined man, or I should say a poor man.  You are going out under circumstances the most painful.  In the country to which you are unhappily destined, you will have no friends—­and no one living feels this more acutely than Una; for, observe me, I am now speaking on her behalf, and acting in her name.  I am her agent.  Now Una is richer than you might imagine, being the possessor of a legacy left her by our grandfather by my father’s side.  Of this legacy, she herself stands in no need—­but you may and will, when you reach a distant country.  Now, Connor, you see how that admirable creature loves you—­you see how that love would follow you to the uttermost ends of the earth.  Will you,