The funeral took place, and there was another carouse more disgraceful than the first, and another, and another, and another! until the week was out. When Gerald’s uncle saw how completely besotted his nephews had become, he took Gerald to live with him, but not until it had become too painfully evident that the boy had acquired a liking for the liquor which had turned his two brothers into human beasts. Poor little Alice wept over the change. There was no more reading, or playing, or wandering through the country together. He sat sulky and silent in the house all day, more like a poor relation on charitable allowance than the joint-heir of the largest farm in the parish. But this was to have an end! A month had passed away since the death of Peter Kavanagh, and the zeal of the eldest heirs had by this time drunk up his entire stock of “mountain dew,” when in some out-of-the-way nook or other they discovered five gallons of malt whisky, which perhaps had lain there forgotten for twenty years. It was on a Saturday morning this was found, and one of the Kavanaghs was heard to swear that he would never quit it till the last drop was drained. It was to be the last bout before they set off for Australia, whither they intended to emigrate that very spring, having, with their uncle’s consent on behalf of the two younger orphans, converted their land into money for the purpose. One or two choice spirits had been invited to join them, but these begged to be excused--even these were appalled at the dreadful excesses of their boon companions. Towards evening Gerald had been missing from his uncle’s house. James Kavanagh guessed how it was, and with little Alice in his hand repaired to the brothers’ dwelling. The door was locked on the inside, and on asking for Gerald he was told that he was all safe there, with the saucy addition that “there wasn’t any admission for any d---- teetotaller.” Shocked and grieved, James Kavanagh went away with his dejected niece. The next day was Easter Sunday. The festival had occurred that year unusually late in the spring, and there was already a foretaste of summer in the air. A lovely noon it was when James Kavanagh, his wife, Alice, and the children, walked out in Sunday trim to the parish chapel. The sky was fretted with light silver clouds--the fields were already green with the new growth of the grass--the hawthorn bushes were almost visibly bursting their buds--the whin braes were in a blaze of golden beauty--the birds, especially the red-breast, were chirping away with intense glee, being, in the glorious language of the poet Shelley, “Many a voice of one delight!” They continued to walk on, and now the bells of the neighbouring church struck out their Easter jubilee with such exquisite sweetness as we might fancy arrested the sceptical purpose of the despairing Faust in Goëthe’s surpassing drama, when the heart-touched metaphysician exclaimed,