I am but a young man, yet my brain reels, and my eyes burn, and my heart swells to my throat, as memory holds the mirror to my view, and I see depicted in it the scenes, and feel again the feelings, that have been more than once or twice excited at the stages which I have just recounted in order. But of all the stabs thus given to the heart, of all those moments of anguish, the keenest is that felt when the survivor re-enters the house, where the form and the voice and the cheerful laugh of the departed one had made his home a little paradise, and feels that that home is now for ever desolate! Is there a desert so deserted? "James," said Mr Scanlan, after he had looked steadfastly at him for some time, "you were the first she brought me; and when you came into the world, I was almost beside myself with joy; and when I was allowed to enter the room where she was sitting up in bed, with you in her arms, I almost smothered you both with kisses; and I cried, and laughed, and danced about, as if I was mad. Sure I need'nt be ashamed to own it, now that she's gone. And when I told her that they said you were the image of me, she answered me, 'So he ought, for sure you were always before my eyes;' and when I said that I could'nt be 'always,' she said that 'twas the eyes of her heart she meant. So, Pat, avourneen (addressing the younger, who had been all this time crying bitterly), though you're the living image of her that's dead, and though father could'nt love son more than I do you, you're not surprised that I gave James the preference sometimes, though I never loved you the less." "Father dear," said Pat, "I was never jealous of Jem, nor he of me; we both knew that our faces and tempers and dispositions took after you both--Jem's after you, and mine after my mother. Oh! mother dear! mother dear!" He burst into a paroxysm of grief, ran wildly into his mother's room, and threw himself across the bed, roaring in a frenzied manner, "James, honey, isn't the house terrible lonesome?" and a violent shudder ran through poor Scanlan's frame. "Isn't there a great echo in it? It's very chilly; I believe I had better go and lie down on the bed." He stood up, and, continuing the forward movement of his body after he had risen to a standing position, would have fallen, extended on his face, but that I caught him just as his watchful son had sprung to save him. Poor Pat now mastered his feelings in some degree, and turned his entire attention to assist his surviving parent. He was laid on the bed, and shortly recovered himself, and addressed my father. "I know your honour feels for my trouble, and will excuse the boys and me for not showing the attention we ought to show for your goodness." "Say nothing about attention to me, James; I am sorry for your trouble, and, God knows, I wish I knew how to relieve and comfort you."