After much conversation; enlivened by the bottle, though but sparingly used on the part of Owen, the hour of rest arrived, when the family separated for the night.

The gray dawn of a calm, beautiful summer’s morning found Owen up and abroad, long before the family of honest Frank had risen.  When dressing himself, with an intention of taking an early walk, he was asked by his friend why he stirred so soon, or if he—­his host—­should accompany him.  “No,” replied Owen; “lie still; jist let me look over the counthry while it’s asleep.  When I’m musin’ this a-way I don’t like anybody to be along wid me.  I have a place to go an’ see, too—­an’ a message—­a tendher message, from poor Kathleen, to deliver, that I wouldn’t wish a second person to hear.  Sleep, Frank.  I’ll jist crush the head o’ my pipe agin’ one o’ the half-burned turf that the fire was raked wid, an’ walk out for an hour or two.  Afther our breakfast we’ll go-an’ look about this new farm.”

He sallied out as he spoke, and closed the door after him in that quiet, thoughtful way for which he was ever remarkable.  The season was midsummer, and the morning wanted at least an hour of sunrise.  Owen ascended a little knoll, above Frank’s house, on which he stood and surveyed the surrounding country with a pleasing but melancholy interest.  As his eye rested on Tubber Derg, he felt the difference strongly between the imperishable glories of nature’s works, and those which are executed by man.  His house he would not have known, except by its site.  It was not, in fact, the same house, but another which had been built in its stead.  This disappointed and vexed him.  An object on which his affections had been placed was removed.  A rude stone house stood before him, rough and unplastered; against each end of which was built a stable-and a cow-house, sloping down from the gables to low doors at booh sides; adjoining these rose two mounds of filth, large enough to be easily distinguished from the knoll on which he stood.  He sighed as he contrasted it with the neat and beautiful farm-house, which shone there in his happy days, white as a lily, beneath the covering of the lofty beeches.  There was no air of comfort, neatness, or independence, about it; on the contrary, everything betrayed the evidence of struggle and difficulty, joined, probably, to want both of skill and of capital.  He was disappointed, and turned his gaze upon the general aspect of the country, and the houses in which either his old acquaintances or their children lived.  The features of the landscape were, certainly, the same; but even here was a change for the worse.  The warmth of coloring which wealth and independence give to the appearance of a cultivated country, was gone.  Decay and coldness seemed to brood upon everything, he saw.  The houses, the farm-yards, the ditches, and enclosures, were all marked by the blasting proofs of national decline.  Some exceptions there were to this disheartening prospect, but they