"I don't know, I'm sure; I've not seen him these two hours."
Mrs. O'Toole went in search of him to what had been the Colonel's bed-room; and there, stretched by the bed he had so long watched, lay the old hound, his limbs quivering in the agonies of death.
"Och! Cormac! you're not dyin'?"
The noble dog strove to raise his head in answer to her voice, but it fell back, and he was dead.
"Och, Cormac! me poor Cormac!" cried Mrs. O'Toole, her scarce dried tears flowing afresh; "but you wur the thrue hearted dog! Sure, there was somethin' inside iv ye far betther than many a man's heart. Och, how'll I iver tell Miss Kate that ye couldn't stop afther yer ould masther was gone?"
But Lady Desmond wisely determined that Kate should not hear of Cormac's death until she made enquiries for him; and Kate lay in perfect quiet for several days, rarely speaking, and never alluding to the sad scenes she had so lately gone through, though often the large tears would pour unconsciously down her cheeks, and when, at last, the intelligence of poor Cormac's death was communicated to her, she received it with a burst of grief, seemingly disproportioned to the occasion. All her sorrow was revived by the death of this faithful follower, so closely associated in her mind, not only with her lamented grandfather, but with her own earliest and happiest days.
One morning, as Lady Desmond and nurse were standing in silent concern, by her bed-side, noticing sadly the deep traces of grief on her young face, she suddenly roused herself from the species of lethargy into which she had fallen, and stretching out her hand to Lady Desmond, said—
"Forgive me, Georgina, forgive me, nurse, I am very selfish and wrong to lie here so indolently; I will endeavour to do better, to be resigned. I will get up and go out in the carriage with you, Georgy, if you wish."
From that day, Kate strove diligently to keep her self-imposed promise, and gradually time, the healer, accustomed her to think, with calm, though unutterably tender sadness, of the dear and venerated relative she had lost.
But she almost loathed the state and luxury amid which she now lived, remembering the petty privations which had depressed and mortified the last weary hours of his life. Often the erring child of earth, groping in the dim twilight of imperfect faith, would raise her heart to Heaven in silent supplication for forgiveness, at these half involuntary murmurs; it is so hard to believe that the sorrows laid upon a beloved and revered object, are not "too heavy." We all know the deep-rooted sin and error of our own hearts, which lie hidden from mortal eye, how much they require chastisement and guidance, but the life that to us seems blameless, the kindly nature, to our eyes, a model for us to follow! Oh, how inscrutable seem the trials we could comprehend if directed to our own discipline.