“Now,” proceeded the dying woman, “come to me, you Kathleen, my daughter—­sure you’re the daughter of my heart, as it is.  Kneel down and stay with me awhile.  Why does my heart warm to you as it never did to any one out o’ my own family?  Why do I love you as if you were my own child?  Because I hope you will be so.  Kiss me, asthore machree.”

Kathleen kissed her, and for a few moments Mrs. M’Mahon felt a shower of warm tears upon her face, accompanied by a gentle and caressing pressure, that seemed to corroborate and return the hope she had just expressed.  Kathleen hastily wiped away her tears, however, and once more resuming her firmness, awaited the expected blessing.

“Now, Kathleen dear, for fear any one might say that at my dyin’ hour, I endeavored to take any unfair advantage of your feelings for my son, listen to me—­love him as you may, and as I know you do.”

“Why should I deny it?” said Kathleen, “I do love him.”

“I know, darlin’, you do, but for all that, go not agin the will and wishes of your parents and friends; that’s my last advice to you.”

She then placed her hand upon her head, and in words breathing of piety and affection, she invoked many a blessing upon her, and upon any that was clear to her in life, after which both Bryan and Kathleen left her to the rest which she now required so much.

The last hour had been an interval from pain with Mrs. M’Mahon.  In the course of the day both the priest and the doctor arrived, and she appeared somewhat better.  The doctor, however, prepared them for the worst, and in confirmation of his opinion, the spasms returned with dreadful violence, and in the lapse of two hours after his visit, this pious and virtuous woman, after suffering unexampled agony with a patience and fortitude that could not be surpassed, expired in the midst of her afflicted family.

It often happens in domestic life, that in cases where long and undisturbed affection is for the first time deprived of its object by death, there supervenes upon the sorrow of many, a feeling of awful sympathy with that individual whose love for the object has been, the greatest, and whose loss is of course the most irreparable.  So was it with the M’Mahons.  Thomas M’Mahon himself could not bear to witness the sufferings of his wife, nor to hear her moans.  He accordingly left the house, and walked about the garden and farm-yard, in a state little short of actual distraction.  When the last scene was over, and her actual sufferings closed for ever, the outrage of grief among his children became almost hushed from a dread of witnessing the sufferings of their father; and for the time a great portion of their own sorrow was merged in what they felt for him.  Nor was this feeling confined to themselves.  His neighbors and acquaintances, on hearing of Mrs. M’Mahon’s death, almost all exclaimed:—­

“Oh, what will become of him? they are nothing an will forget her soon, as is natural, well as they loved her; but poor Tom, oh! what on earth will become of him?” Every eye, however, now turned toward Bryan, who was the only one of the family possessed of courage enough to undertake the task of breaking the heart-rending intelligence to their bereaved father.