From the moment this intimation was! given, and its truth confirmed, a faint light, not greater than the dim and trembling lustre of a single star, broke in upon the darkened affections and worldly spirit of Fardorougha Donovan. Had the announcement taken place within a reasonable period after his marriage, before he had become sick of disappointment, or had surrendered his heart from absolute despair to an incipient spirit of avarice, it would no doubt have been hailed with all the eager delight of unblighted hope and vivid affection; but now a new and subtle habit had been superinduced, after the last cherished expectation of the heart had departed; a spirit of foresight and severe calculation descended on him, and had so nearly saturated his whole being, that he could not for some time actually determine whether the knowledge of his wife's situation was more agreeable to his affection, or repugnant to the parsimonious disposition which had quickened his heart into an energy incompatible with natural benevolence, and the perception of those tender ties which spring up from the relations of domestic life. For a considerable time this struggle between the two principles went on; sometimes a new hope would spring up, attended in the background by a thousand affecting circumstances--on the other hand, some gloomy and undefinable dread of exigency, distress, and ruin, would wring his heart and sink his spirits down to positive misery. Notwithstanding this conflict between growing avarice and affection, the star of the father's love had risen, and though, as we have already said, its light was dim and unsteady, yet the moment a single opening occurred in the clouded mind, there it was to be seen serene and pure, a beautiful emblem of undying and solitary affection struggling with the cares and angry passions of life. By degrees, however, the husband's heart became touched by the hopes of his younger years, former associations revived, and remembrances of past tenderness, though blunted in a heart so much changed, came over him like the breath of fragrance that has nearly passed away. He began, therefore, to contemplate the event without foreboding, and by the time the looked-for period arrived, if the world and its debasing influences were not utterly overcome, yet nature and the quickening tenderness of a father's feeling had made a considerable progress in a heart from which they had been long banished. Far different from all this was the history of his wife since her perception of an event so delightful. In her was no bitter and obstinate principle subversive of affection to be overcome. For although she had in latter years sank into the painful apathy of a hopeless spirit, and given herself somewhat to the world, yet no sooner did the unexpected light dawn upon her, than her whole soul was filled with exultation and delight. The world and its influence passed away like a dream, and her heart melted into a habit of tenderness at once