Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-11-10
'ASTORY OF BLOOD.
Ut NJ. E. DRADDoN.
CHAPTER n.-ooNr1NUEp.

blossom was in the air of the papI and the
boulevards; the lamplit streets and cafes
were full of brightness and music in the
balmy eventides of July. The young wife
was looking forward tremblingly, yet hope
fully, to the cares and joys of maternity.
The dark-eyed stepdaughter adored her.
Too young TO remember her own mother,
who had died in Bengal where the girl was
born the child idolised the Captains fair
haired wife and was fOndly loved by her in
return. Never was there q happier family
group than these three, and when the eX-
pected baby should come, it was to be boy,
the Captain declared in the pride of his
heart; a son and heir-heir to empty pockets,
wasted opportunities, bankruptcy, and gaol.
He was pining for son to perpetuate the
noble race OF O'IIara. The baby was to be
christened Patrick, after some famous Pat
rick O'Hara of days gone by, the age of war
and chivalry, and poetry and pride, when
Ireland had not yet yielded her sweetness
to the proud invader.
Alas for the unborn child on whom such
hopes had been founded, such dreams had
been dreamt! The fatal day of birth came,
and the child was girl; and before the
wailing infant was six days Old the young
fair mother, with the ripping golden hair
and innocent blue eyes, was lying in her
coffin, strewn with white lilies and roses,
and all the purest flowers of summer-tide.
The brave young heart, which had never
flinched or faltered at poverty or trouble,
was stilled for ever. The wife who had
been content to bear Fates worst ills with
the husband of her choice was gone to the
shadowy home where his love could not fol-
low her.
Captain O'Hara never looked the world
or his difficulties bravely in the face after
that day. He lived to see Kathleen lovely
girl of five years old, but he was broken
man from the day Of his wife's death. He
rOamed from foreign town to town, living
anywhere for convenience or cheapness.
He spent six months at Brest, a year in
jersey the two girls with him everywhere
nursed and cared for by Bridget Ryan, the
faithful Irish maid-servant who had taken
Rose from the arms of her Indian ayah, and
had followed the Captains fortunes ever
since. lie led a wretched out-at-elbows life,
getting little money by hook or by crook,
and leaving little train of debts behind
him, like the trail of the serpent, in every
town he left.
In jersey, where cognac was cOnvenI ent-
" cheap, the Captain took to drinking a
good deal-not in dreadful drinking bouts,
which would have frightened his poor chill
dren out of their senses, but in a gentle
homeopathic sort of Sottishness which kept
his brain in feeble state all day long. and
gradually Slapped his strength and his
manhood. While the Captain was dawdling
away his day-strolIing down to the tavern
or the club, lounging on the esplanade, gos-
slipping with the goers and corners, meeting
old acquaintance, and sometimes getting an
invitation to dinner, with cigarette always
between his lips-the two children, of
whom the elder was nOS eleven, and the
yOun ger only four, used to play together all
day upon the golden sands in front of their
shabby lodgings, while the Irish nurse Cos
slipped with the landlady, or sat in the sun
darnng and patching the children's we'll
worn frocks or the Captains decay ing
shirts.
The two girls were happy in those sunny
summer days by the sea, in spite Of their
poor lodgings and scanty fare. Fruit was
cheap and flowers were abundant every
where, and there was no Stint Of bread and
butter, and milk and eggs. The children
wanted nothing better. But it was dis
nal change for them when their father car
ried them back to Belgium, and established
them in stony street in Bruges whore the
peaked roofs of the opposite houses seemed
to shut out the sun, and where, instead of
the sweet odoDs of sea and seaweed, there
was an everlasting stencil of dried fish and
sewage.
1t was winter by this time, and 1t seemed
to be the winter of their lives. Kathleen
cried for the sea and the flowers of sunny
Cha ha 70
derstand that summer was only happy in
ssrval in the year, and that flowers do not
grow in the stony streets Of a city. The days
in Bruges were cold and dismal, the even
ings long and gloomy. If it had not been
for Biddy Ryan the poor children might
have pinned to death in their solitude. Cap
tain O'Hara was never at home in the even
ing, rarely at home In the afternoon, and lie
never left his bed till the carlton at the
cathedral had played that lovely melody of
Beethoven's, Hope told a flattering tale,
which the bells rang out every day at noon
tide. The Captain found the cafe indis-
pensable to his comfort, the petit UeTTe d db-
stnthe suisse necessity of his being, a
game at dominoes or draughts the only dis
traction for the canker at his heart; thus
the children, whom he loved fondy enough
after his manner, were dependent on Biddy
Ryan for happiness; and the faithful soul
did her utmost to cheer and amuse them in
their loneliness. She told them her fairy
stories, the legends of her native Kerry she
described the green hills and purple noun
tains, the lakes, the glens and gorges, the
islands and groves and abbeys, of that ro-
mantle country; until Rose, who had seen
but little Of the grandeur and glory of earth,
longed with passionate longing for that
land Of lake and mountain, which was in
somewse her own land, inasmuch as her
father hid been born and bred within few
miles of Killarney.
"And yen both go there some day, my
darlints," said tender-hearted Biddy, 'and
it's ladies yell be, and never poor day yen
know in ould Ireland; for by the Lords
grace the Captains rich cousins may all die
of like ratten sheep, and his honor may
come In for the estate? There's quarer
things have happened than that in my
knowledge, and sure it's great hunters the
gentleman are, and may ride home with
broken necks any day."
Rose said she hoped her cousins would
not die; but she wished they would ask her
father and all of them to go and live at the
great white honse near the lakes, which
Biddy described as a Qrander nalace than