“Why, darlin’?”

“Bekase, you know, he’d go to heaven, and I’d like to be wid him; sure he’d miss me—­his own Atty—­wherever he’d be.”

“And so you’d lave me and your sisters, Atty, and go to heaven with your father!”

The boy seemed perplexed; he looked affectionately at his mother, and said—­

“No, mammy, I wouldn’t wish to lave you, for then you’d have no son at all; no, I wouldn’t lave you—­I don’t know what I’d do—­I’d like to stay wid you, and I’d like to go wid him, I’d—­”

“Well, darlin’, you won’t be put to that trial this many a long day, I hope.”

Just then voices were heard at the door, which both recognized as those of Art and Mat Mulrennan the apprentice.

“Now, darlin’,” said the mother, who observed that the child was pale and drowsy-looking, “you may go to bed, I see you are sleepy, Atty, not bein’ accustomed to sit up so late; kiss me, an’ good-night.”  He then kissed her, and sought the room where he slept.

Margaret, after the boy had gone, listened a moment, and became deadly pale, but she uttered no exclamation; on the contrary, she set her teeth, and compressed her lips closely together, put her hand on the upper part of her forehead, and rose to go to the door.  She was not yet certain, but a dreadful terror was over her—­Could it be possible that he was drunk?—­she opened it, and the next moment her husband, in a state of wild intoxication, different from any in which she had ever seen him, come in.  He was furious, but his fury appeared to have been directed against the apprentice, in consequence of having returned home so late.

On witnessing with her own eyes the condition in which he returned, all her presentiments flashed on her, and her heart sank down into a state of instant hopelessness and misery.

“Savior of the world!” she exclaimed, “I and my childre are lost; now, indeed, are we hopeless—­oh, never till now, never till now!” She wept bitterly.

“What are you cryin’ for now?” said he; “what are you cryin’ for, I say?” he repeated, stamping his feet madly as he spoke; “stop at wanst, I’ll have no cry—­cryin’ what—­at—­somever.”

She instantly dried her eyes.

“Wha—­what kep that blasted whelp, Mul—­Mulrennan, out till now, I say?”

“I don’t know indeed, Art.”

“You—­you don’t! you kno—­know noth-in’; An’ now I’ll have a smash, by the—­the holy man, I’ll—­I’ll smash every thing in—­in the house.”

He then took up a chair, which, by one blow against the floor, he crashed to pieces.

“Now,” said he, “tha—­that’s number one; whe—­where’s that whelp, Mul—­Mulrennan, till I pay—­pay him for stayin’ out so—­so late.  Send him here, send the ska-min’ sco—­scoundrel here, I bid you.”.  Margaret, naturally dreading violence, went to get little Atty to pacify him, as well as to intercede for the apprentice; she immediately returned, and told him the latter was coming.  Art, in the mean time, stood a little beyond the fireplace, with a small beach chair in his hand which he had made for Atty, when the boy was only a couple of years old, but which had been given to the other children in succession.  He had been first about to break it also, but on looking at it, he paused and said—­