"
"Father, you won't bring us nor you won't go," added Dora; "sure we
never could be very miserable here, where we have all been so happy."
"Poor Dora!" said Bryan, "what a mistake that is! I feel the contrary;
for the very happiness that I and all of us enjoyed here, now only adds
to what I'm sufferin'."
"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.
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