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.  Kathleen could not speak, although she tried; her sobs denied her utterance; and Owen involuntarily sat upon a chair, and covered his face with his hand.

To an observing eye it is never difficult to detect the cant of imposture, or to perceive distress when it is real.  The good woman of the house, as is usual in Ireland, was in the act of approaching them, unsolicited, with a double handful of meal—­that is what the Scotch and northern Irish call a goivpen, or as much as both hands locked together can contain—­when, noticing their distress, she paused a moment, eyed them more closely, and exclaimed—­

“What’s this?  Why there’s something wrong wid you, good people!  But first an’ foremost take this, in the name an’ honor of God.”

“May the blessin’ of the same Man* rest upon yees!” replied Kathleen.  “This is a sorrowful thrial to us; for it’s our first day to be upon the world; an’ this is the first help of the kind we ever axed for, or ever got; an’ indeed now I find we haven’t even a place to carry it in.  I’ve no—­b—­b—­cloth, or anything to hould it.”

* God is sometimes thus termed in Ireland.  By “Man” here is meant person or being.  He is also called the “Man above;” although this must have been intended for, and often is applied to, Christ only.

“Your first, is it?” said the good woman.  “Your first!  May the marciful queen o’ heaven look down upon yees, but it’s a bitther day yees war driven out in!  Sit down, there, you poor crathur.  God pity you, I pray this day, for you have a heart-broken look!  Sit down awhile, near the fire, you an’ the childre!  Come over, darlins, an’ warm yourselves.  Och,