Ever since the death of his wife, Thomas M'Mahon could not be prevailed
upon to taste a morsel of food. He went about from place to place,
marked by such evidences of utter prostration and despair that it was
painful to look upon him, especially when one considered the truth,
purity, and fervor of the affection that had subsisted between him and
the inestimable woman he had lost. The only two individuals capable of
exercising any influence upon him now were Bryan and his daughter Dora;
yet even they could not prevail upon him to take any sustenance. His
face was haggard and pale as death, his eyes red and bloodshot, and his
very body, which had always been erect and manly, was now stooped and
bent from the very intensity of his affliction.
He had been about the garden during the scene just described, and from
the garden he passed round through all the office-houses, into every one
of which he entered, looking at them in the stupid bereavement of grief,
as if he had only noticed them for the first time. On going into the
cow-house where the animals were at their food, he approached one of
them--that which had been his wife's favorite, and which would suffer
no hand to milk her but her own--"Oh, Bracky," he said, "little you know
who's gone from you--even you miss her already, for you refused for the
last three days to let any one of them milk you, when she was not here
to do it.
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