Yes! timidly--with
a blush, of shame, red even to crimson, upon the pallid features
of Kathleen--with grief acute and piercing--they entered the house
together.
For some minutes they stood and spoke not. The unhappy woman,
unaccustomed to the language of supplication, scarcely knew in what
terms to crave assistance. Owen himself stood back, uncovered, his
fine, but much changed features overcast with an expression of
deep affliction. Kathleen cast a single glance, at him, as if for
encouragement. Their eyes met; she saw the upright man--the last remnant
of the M'Carthy--himself once the friend of the poor, of the unhappy, of
the afflicted--standing crushed and broken down by misfortunes which he
had not deserved, waiting with patience for a morsel of charity. Owen,
too, had his remembrances. He recollected the days when he sought and
gained the pure and fond affections of his Kathleen: when beauty, and
youth, and innocence encircled her with their light and their grace, as
she spoke or moved; he saw her a happy wife and mother in her own
home, kind and benevolent to all who required her good word or her good
office, and remembered the sweetness of her light-hearted song; but now
she was homeless. He remembered, too, how she used to plead with himself
for the afflicted. It was but a moment; yet when their eyes met, that
moment was crowded by recollections that flashed across their minds with
a keen, sense of a lot so bitter and wretched as theirs.
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