Whether Fardorougha felt the want of children acutely or otherwise, could not be inferred from any visible indication of regret on his part by those who knew him.  His own wife, whose facilities of observation were so great and so frequent, was only able to suspect in the affirmative.  For himself he neither murmured nor repined; but she could perceive that, after a few years had passed, a slight degree of gloom began to settle on him, and an anxiety about his crops, and his few cattle, and the produce of his farm.  He also began to calculate the amount of what might be saved from the fruits of their united industry.  Sometimes, but indeed upon rare occasions, his temper appeared inclining to be irascible or impatient; but in general it was grave, cold, and inflexible, without any outbreaks of passion, or the slightest disposition to mirth.  His wife’s mind, however, was by no means so firm as his, nor so free from the traces of that secret regret which preyed upon it.  She both murmured and repined, and often in terms which drew from Fardorougha a cool rebuke for her want of resignation to the will of God.  As years advanced, however, her disappointment became harassing even to herself, and now that hope began to die away, her heart gradually partook of the cool worldly spirit which had seized upon the disposition of her husband, Though cultivating but a small farm, which they held at a high rent, yet, by the dint of frugality and incessant diligence, they were able to add a little each year to the small stock of money which they had contrived to put together.  Still would the unhappy recollection that they were childless steal painfully and heavily over them; the wife would sometimes murmur, and the husband reprove her, but in a tone so cool and indifferent that she could not avoid concluding that his own want of resignation, though not expressed, was at heart equal to her own.  Each also became somewhat religious, and both remarkable for a punctual attendance upon the rites of their church, and that in proportion as the love of temporal things overcame them.  In this manner they lived upwards of thirteen years, when Mrs. Donovan declared herself to be in that situation which in due time rendered the services of Mary Moan necessary.

From the moment this intimation was! given, and its truth confirmed, a faint light, not greater than the dim and trembling lustre of a single star, broke in upon the darkened affections and worldly spirit of Fardorougha Donovan.  Had the announcement taken place within a reasonable period after his marriage, before he had become sick of disappointment, or had surrendered his heart from absolute despair to an incipient spirit of avarice, it would no doubt have been hailed with all the eager delight of unblighted hope and vivid affection; but now a new and subtle habit had been superinduced, after the last cherished expectation of the heart had departed; a spirit of foresight and severe calculation descended on him,