I must leave
you--I must go."
"We will go up with you," said Kathleen. "Hanna, we will go up; for,
if she is in danger, I would like to get the blessing of such a woman
before she dies; but let us trust in G-od she won't die, and that it's
only a sudden attack that will pass away."
"Do so, Kathleen," said her mother; "and you can fetch us word how she
is. May the Lord bring her safe over it at any rate; for surely the
family will break their hearts afther her, an' no wondher, for where was
her fellow?"
Bryan was not capable of hearing these praises, which he knew to be
so well and so justly her due, with firmness; nor could he prevent his
tears, unless by a great effort, from bearing testimony to the depth
of his grief. Kathleen's gaze, however, was turned on him with an
expression which gave him strength; for indeed there was something noble
and. sustaining in the earnest and consoling sympathy which he read in
her dark and glorious eye. On their way to Carriglass there was little
spoken. Bryan's eye every now and then sought that of Kathleen; and
he learned, for the first time, that it is only in affliction that the
exquisite tenderness of true and disinterested love can be properly
appreciated and felt. Indeed he wondered at his own sensations; for
in proportion as his heart became alarmed at the contemplation of his
mother's loss, he felt, whenever he looked upon Kathleen, that it also
burned towards her with greater tenderness and power--so true is it
that sorrow and suffering purify and exalt all our nobler and better
emotions.
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