Norah was too diffident to ask Patrick how he sped the next day—but didn’t she burn to know! At length, and with a very sad face, he told her all except his mother’s covert and undeserved reproaches. Norah listened with a tear in her eye, for she could not dissemble. She did not interrupt him, and when he ceased, she said: “Sure you’ll go with them, Patrick, dear!” “Sure I’ll do no such thing, Norah, darling!” And he hugged her to his heart with a suddenness which she could not foresee, and an energy she could not resist, had she wished it. CHAPTER III. Norah was satisfied. There is no denying that. But how was Paddy to satisfy his father and mother and Ellen? How was he to explain to the little O’Briens that they were going to America and brother Patrick was to remain behind? Never was a worse day’s work done for Norah’s father than Patrick’s that day, we are very sure. Never was a poor fellow so dissatisfied with himself. A few days before, all seemed to promise to falsify the adage that the course of true love never did run smooth. And now never was stream so ruffled. “’Tis but a word and all’s over,” he said to himself, as he turned his head homeward the next evening, prepared to face the worst. But his fears whispered that there would be more than one word or two, and those high ones; and by the time he had reached his father’s door, all his courage was gone again. When he entered he found the good wife there who had the son over sea. She was fully installed as one of the council, since she also had resolved upon crossing the water. All the various items and charges of the voyage were calculated, and Paddy was counted as one of the party—not without lamentations, which he arrived in season to hear, that he had grown too tall to be counted as one of the “childher.” It was a desperate case, and there was nothing for it but desperate courage. “Mother,” said Patrick, “and father, and Ellen, and you childher, you’ve pushed the thing so far that you drive me to tell you all, once and forever, that I cannot go!” Patrick senior let his pipe fall with astonishment. The mother turned pale with sorrow and displeasure. Ellen arose, and going to Patrick’s side—he had not taken a seat—drew him out of doors. They walked a few steps from the house in silence, and reaching a tree paused there. Patrick folded his arms, and leaning against it, bowed his head and stood in troubled silence. Ellen placed her hands upon his, and never a word was spoken till, when she felt her brother’s hot tears fall upon her hand, she cried: “Sure, Paddy, you are not going to leave us now!” And she fell upon his neck and clung to him with the evidences of earnest and frantic affection. “Indeed, indeed, Ellen darling, it is you that leave me. It is you that go away from the land where God has been good to us, to seek a new home and new friends over sea. I cannot go there with you, Ellen; indeed I can’t.”