When this tender scene was over, the midwife commenced—­

“Well, if ever a man had raison to be thank—­”

“Silence, woman!” he exclaimed in a voice which hushed her almost into terror.

“Let him alone,” said the wife, addressing her, “let him alone, I know what he feels.”

“No,” he replied, “even you, Honora, don’t know it—­my heart, my heart went astray, and there, undher God and my Saviour, is the being that will be the salvation of his father.”

His wife understood him and was touched; the tears fell fast from her eyes, and, extending her hand to him, she said, as he clasped it: 

“Sure, Fardorougha, the world won’t be as much in your heart now, nor your temper so dark as it was.”

He made no reply; but, placing his other hand over his eyes, he sat in that posture for some minutes.  On raising his head the tears were running as if involuntarily down his cheeks.

“Honora,” said he, “I’ll go out for a little—­you can tell Mary Moan where anything’s to be had—­let them all be trated so as that they don’t take too much—­and, Mary Moan, you won’t be forgotten.”

He then passed out, and did not appear for upwards of an hour, nor could any one of them tell where he had been.

“Well,” said Honora, after he had left the room, “we’re now married near fourteen years; and until this night I never see him shed a tear.”

“But sure, acushla, if anything can touch a father’s heart, the sight of his first child will.  Now keep yourself aisy, avourneen, and tell me where the whiskey an’ anything else that may be a wantin’ is, till I give these crathurs of sarvints a dhrop of something to comfort thim.”

At this time, however, Mrs. Donovan’s mother and two sisters, who had some hours previously been sent for, just arrived, a circumstance which once more touched the newly awakened chord of the mother’s heart, and gave her that confidence which the presence of “one’s own blood,” as the people expressed it, always communicates upon such occasions.  After having kissed and admired the babe, and bedewed its face with the warm tears of affection, they piously knelt down, as is the custom among most Irish families, and offered up a short but fervent prayer of gratitude as well for an event so happy, as for her safe delivery, and the future welfare of the mother and child.  When this was performed, they set themselves to the distribution of the blithe meat or groaning malt, a duty which the midwife transferred to them with much pleasure, this being a matter which, except in matters of necessity, she considered beneath the dignity of her profession.  The servants were accordingly summoned in due time, and, headed by Nogher, soon made their appearance.  In events of this nature, servants in Ireland, and we believe everywhere else, are always allowed a considerable stretch of good-humored license in those observations which they are in the habit of making.  Indeed, this is not so much an extemporaneous indulgence of wit on their part, as a mere repetition of the set phrases and traditionary apothegms which have been long established among the peasantry, and as they are generally expressive of present satisfaction and good wishes for the future, so would it be looked upon as churlishness, and in some cases, on the part of the servants, a sign of ill-luck, to neglect them.