In calamity we are anxious to derive support from the sympathy of our friends; in our success, we are eager to communicate to them the power of participating in our happiness.  When Owen once more found himself independent and safe, he longed to realize two plans on which he had for some time before been seriously thinking.  The first was to visit his former neighbors, that they might at length know that Owen McCarthy’s station in the world was such as became his character.  The second was, if possible, to take a farm in his native parish, that he might close his days among the companions of his youth, and the friends of his maturer years.  He had, also, another motive; there lay the burying-place of the M’Carthys, in which slept the mouldering dust of his own “golden-haired” Alley.  With them—­in his daughter’s grave—­he intended to sleep his long sleep.  Affection for the dead is the memory of the heart.  In no other graveyard could he reconcile it to himself to be buried; to it had all his forefathers been gathered; and though calamity had separated him from the scenes where they had passed through existence, yet he was resolved that death should not deprive him of its last melancholy consolation;—­that of reposing with all that remained of the “departed,” who had loved him, and whom he had loved.  He believed, that to neglect this, would be to abandon a sacred duty, and felt sorrow at the thought of being like an absent guest from the assembly of his own dead; for there is a principle of undying hope in the heart, that carries, with bold and beautiful imagery, the realities of life into the silent recesses of death itself.

Having formed the resolution of visiting his old friends at Tubber Derg, he communicated it to Kathleen and his family; Ids wife received the intelligence with undisguised delight.

“Owen,” she replied, “indeed I’m glad you mintioned it.  Many a time the thoughts of our place, an’ the people about it, comes over me.  I know, Owen, it’ll go to your heart to see it; but still, avourneen, you’d like, too, to see the ould faces an’ the warm hearts of them that pitied us, an’ helped us, as well as they could, whin we war broken down.”

“I would, Kathleen; but I’m not going merely to see thim an’ the place.  I intind, if I can, to take a bit of land somewhere near Tubber Derg.  I’m unasy in my mind, for ’fraid I’d not sleep in the grave-yard where all belongin’ to me lie.”

A chord of the mother’s heart was touched; and in a moment the memory of their beloved child brought the tears to her eyes.

“Owen, avourneen, I have one requist to ax of you, an’ I’m sure you won’t refuse it to me; if I die afore you, let me be buried wid Alley.  Who has a right to sleep so near her as her own mother?”