Madame Dornthal stopped a moment to brush away her tears, then smiled as she continued:
“But be easy, he knows everything now. He comprehends the state of affairs, and feels as we do. It is better, however, that I alone should see him this evening. Give me those papers. And you, my boy, see after your brother and sister. I have not had time to think of them. Ah! and Gabrielle, poor child, perhaps it would be well to look for her also and tell her all. We have nothing to conceal from any one, above all from her.”
Without awaiting a reply, Madame Dornthal abruptly left her son to rejoin her husband in the library, where she remained the rest of the evening.
THE LAST DAYS OF OISIN, THE BARD.
BY AUBREY DE VERE.
IV.
OISIN’S QUESTION.
“O Patrick! taught by him, the Unknown,
These questions answer ere I die:—
Why, when the trees at evening moan,
Why must an old man sigh?
“No kinsmen of my stock are they,
Though reared was I in sylvan cell:
Love-whispers once they breathed: this day
They mutter but ‘farewell.’
“What mean the floods? Of old they said,
‘Thus, thus, ye chiefs, ye clans, sweep on!’
They whiten still their rocky bed:
Those chiefs and clans are gone.