The history of the Cooleen Bawn’s melancholy fate soon went far and near, and many an eye that had never rested on her beauty gave its tribute of tears to her undeserved sorrows.  There existed, however, one individual who was the object of almost as deep a compassion; this was her father, who was consumed by the bitterest and most profound remorse.  His whole character became changed by his terrible and unexpected shock, by which his beautiful and angelic daughter had been blasted before his eyes.  He was no longer the boisterous and convivial old squire, changeful and unsettled in all his opinions, but silent, quiet, and abstracted almost from life.

He wept incessantly, but his tears did not bring him comfort, for they were tears of anguish and despair.  Ten times a day he would proceed to her chamber, or follow her to the garden where she loved to walk, always in the delusive hope that he might catch some spark of returning reason from those calm-looking but meaningless eyes, after which he would weep like a child.  With respect to his daughter, every thing was done for her that wealth and human means could accomplish, but to no purpose; the malady was too deeply seated to be affected by any known remedy, whether moral or physical.  From the moment she was struck into insanity she was never known to smile, or to speak, unless when she chanced to see a stranger, upon which she immediately approached, and asked, with clasped hands: 

“Oh! can you tell me where is William Reilly?  They have taken me from him, and, I cannot find him.  Oh! can you tell me where is William Reilly?”

There was, however, another individual upon whose heart the calamity of the Cooleen Bawn fell like a blight that seemed to have struck it into such misery and sorrow as threatened to end only with life.  This was the faithful and attached Ellen Connor.  On the day of Reilly’s trial she experienced the alternations of hope, uncertainty, and despair, with such a depth of anxious feeling, and such feverish excitement, that the period of time which elapsed appeared to her as if it would never come to an end.  She could neither sit, nor stand, nor work, nor read, nor take her meals, nor scarcely think with any consistency or clearness of thought.  We have mentioned hope—­but it was the faintest and the feeblest element in that chaos of distress and confusion which filled and distracted her mind.  She knew the state and condition of the country too well—­she knew the powerful influence of Mr. Folliard in his native county—­she knew what the consequences to Reilly must be of taking away a Protestant heiress; the fact was there—­plain, distinct, and incontrovertible, and she knew that no chance of impunity or acquittal remained for any one of his creed guilty of such a violation of the laws—­we say, she knew all this—­but it was not of the fate of Reilly she thought.  The girl was an acute observer, and both a close and clear thinker.  She had remarked in the Cooleen