He
grasped Owen's hand, and, in a low and broken voice, simply said--"Keep
your spirits up--keep them up."
When they came to the barn in which his helpless family had taken up
their temporary residence, Owen stood for a moment to collect himself;
but he was nervous, and trembled with repressed emotion. They then
entered; and Kathleen, on seeing her beloved and affectionate husband,
threw herself on his bosom, and for some time felt neither joy nor
sorrow--she had swooned. The poor man embraced her with a tenderness
at once mournful and deep. The children, on seeing their father safely
returned, forgot their recent grief, and clung about him with gladness
and delight. In the meantime Kathleen recovered, and Owen for many
minutes could not check the loud and clamorous grief, now revived by
the presence of her husband, with which the heart-broken and emaciated
mother deplored her departed child; and Owen himself, on once more
looking among the little ones, on seeing her little frock hanging up,
and her stool vacant by the fire--on missing her voice and her blue
laughing eyes--and remembering the affectionate manner in which, as with
a presentiment of death, she held up her little mouth and offered him
the last kiss--he slowly pulled the toys and cakes he had purchased for
her out of his pocket, surveyed them for a moment, and then, putting
his hands on his face, bent his head upon his bosom, and wept with the
vehement outpouring of a father's sorrow.
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