The deep sorrow and desolation of spirit introduced by the profligate destroyer into the humble abode of peace and innocence is an awful thing to contemplate.  In our chapter headed “The Wake of a Murderer” we have attempted to give a picture of it.  The age, indeed, was one of licentiousness and profligacy.  The reigning monarch, Charles the Second, of infamous memory, had set the iniquitous example to his subjects, and surrounded his court by an aristocratic crew, who had scarcely anything to recommend them but their imitation of his vices, and this was always a passport to his favor, whilst virtue, morality, and honor were excluded with contempt and derision.  In fact, the corrupt atmosphere of his court carried its contagion throughout the empire, until the seduction of female innocence became the fashion of the day, and no man could consider himself entitled to a becoming position in society who had not distinguished himself by half a dozen criminal intrigues either with the wives or daughters of his acquaintances.  When we contemplate for a moment the contrast between the abandoned court of that royal profligate, and that under which we have the happiness to live—­the one, a sty of infamy, licentiousness, and corruption; the other, a well, undented of purity, virtue, and honor, to whose clear mind unadulterated waters nothing equivocal, or even questionable, dares to approach, much less the base or the tainted—­we say that, on instituting this comparison and contrast, the secret of that love and affectionate veneration which we bear to our pure and highminded Queen, and the pride which we feel in the noble example which she and her Royal Consort have set us, requires no illustration whatsoever.  The affection and gratitude of her people are only the meed due to her virtues and to his.  We need not apologize to our readers for this striking contrast.  The period and the subject of our narrative, as well as the melancholy scene to which we are about to introduce the reader, rendered it an impossibility to avoid it.

We now proceed to the humble homestead of Torley Davoren; a homestead which we have already described as the humble abode of peace and happiness.  Barney Casey, who felt anxious to know from the parents of Grace Davoren whether any trace or tidings of her had been heard of, went to pay the heart-broken family a visit for that purpose.

On entering, he found the father seated at his humble hearth, unshaven, and altogether a man careless and negligent of his appearance.  He sat with his hands clasped before him, and his heavy eyes fixed on the embers of the peat fire which smouldered on the hearth.  The mother was at her distaff, and so were the other two females—­to wit, her grandmother and Grace’s sister.  But the mother! gracious heaven, what a spirit of distress and misery breathed from those hopeless and agonizing features!  There was not only natural sorrow there, occasioned by the disappearance of her daughter, but