“God bless you and the young hopes that are growing up about you. May they be more fortunate than their uncle; but may they preserve as pure and ardent an attachment to their country as he has done. Give the watch to little Robert. He will not prize it the less for having been in the possession of two Roberts before him. I have one dying request to make to you. I was attached to Sarah Curran, the youngest daughter of your friend. I did hope to have had her my companion for life. I did hope that she would not only have constituted my happiness, but that her heart and understanding would have made her one of Jane’s dearest friends. I know that Jane would have loved her on my account and I feel also that had they been acquainted she must have loved her on her own. No one knew of the attachment until now, nor is it now generally known, therefore do not speak of it to others. She is living with her father and brother, but if these protectors should fall off and that no other should replace them, treat her as my wife and love her as a sister. God Almighty bless you all. Give my love to all my friends.” * * * * * As soon as his daughter was able to travel, Curran drove her from his house. She first found shelter with her kind friends the Crawfords, of Lismore, and subsequently with a Quaker family called Penrose at Woodhill, Cork, whose kindness to the broken-hearted, homeless girl helped to restore her to some degree of strength. On one occasion, during her stay with them, they persuaded her to go to a masked ball in Cork. The “mask” selected for her was that of a wandering ballad-singer, and in this character she sang, in the exquisite voice, which had so often charmed her dead young lover, some of the beautiful, plaintive Irish airs of Owenson. A romantic young officer, Captain Sturgeon, lost his heart to the singer—and when he heard her story his affections were but the more deeply engaged. Himself, the offspring of a most romantic marriage,[101] he found in the halo of poetry, with which Sarah’s sad love-story invested her, but an added attraction. He, therefore, proposed for her hand; and the Penroses who saw in this marriage, the one hope of their friend’s future settlement, urged his suit with much ardour. At this time consumption had declared itself in her fragile form, and the doctors stated that residence in a warm climate was necessary to save her life. Captain Sturgeon was ordered to Sicily in the winter of 1805, and this fact seemed to Miss Curran’s friends, the Penroses, an additional reason for urging her to accept his proposal. Footnote 101: His mother, Lady Harriet Wentworth, sister to the Marquis of Rockingham, had married her footman. At last she yielded to the united entreaties of her friends and gave her hand to Captain Sturgeon, with his full knowledge that her heart was buried in Emmet’s unknown grave.