“Childre’,” said the father, “our landlord has broken his own father’s dyin’ promise—­you all remember how full of delight I came home to you from Dublin, and how she that’s gone”—­he paused;—­he covered his face with his open hands, through which the tears were seen to trickle.  This allusion to their beloved mother was too much for them.  Arthur and Michael sat in silence, not knowing exactly upon what grounds their father had formed a resolution, which, when proposed to him by Bryan, appeared to be one to which his heart could never lend its sanction.  No sooner was their mother named, however, than they too became deeply moved, and when Kitty and Dora both rushed with an outcry of sorrow to their father, exclaiming, “Oh, father dear, think of her that’s in the clay—­for her sake, change your mind and don’t take us to where we can never weep a tear over her blessed grave, nor ever kneel over it to offer a prayer within her hearin’ for her soul!”

“Childre,” he exclaimed, wiping away his tears that had indeed flowed in all the bitterness of grief and undeserved affliction; “childre’,” he replied, “you must be manly now; it’s because I love you an’ feels anxious to keep you from beggary and sorrow at a future time, and destitution and distress, such as we see among so many about us every day in the week, that I’ve made up my mind to go.  Our landlord wont give us our farm barrin’ at a rent that ’tid bring us down day by day, to poverty and distress like too many of our neighbors.  We have yet some thrifle o’ money left, as much as will, by all accounts, enable us to take—­I mane to purchase a farm in America—­an’ isn’t it betther for us to go there, and be independent, no matther what it may cost our hearts to suffer by doin’ so, than to stay here until the few hundre’ that I’ve got together is melted away out of my pocket into the picket of a landlord that never wanst throubles himself to know how we’re gettin’ on, or whether we’re doin’ well or ill.  Then think of his conduct to Bryan, there; how he neglected him, and would let him go to ruin widout ever movin’ a finger to save him from it.  No, childre’, undher sich a man I won’t stay.  Prepare yourselves, then, to lave this.  In biddin’ you to do so, I’m actin’ for the best towards you all.  I’m doin’ my duty by you, and I expect for that raison, an’ as obedient childre’—­which I’ve ever found you—­that you’ll do your duty by me, an’ give no further opposition to what I’m proposin’ for your sakes.  I know you’re all loath—­an’ you will be loath—­to lave this place; but do you think?—­do you?—­’that I—­I—­oh, my God!—­do you think, I say, that I’ll feel nothing when we go?  Oh! little you know of me if you think so! but, as I said, we must do our duty.  We see our neighbors fallin’ away into poverty, and distress, and destitution day by day, and if we remain in this unfortunate country, we must only folly in their tracks, an’ before long be as miserable and helpless as they are.”