With lightning speed my once home rose up before me with its happy hearts; the old familiar faces were there; the gay laugh was in my ears; there sat my dear old uncle, as with bright eye and mellow voice he looked a very welcome to his guests; there Boyle; there Considine; there the grim-visaged portraits that graced the old walls whose black oak wainscot stood in broad light and shadow, as the blazing turf fire shone upon it; there was my own place, now vacant; methought my uncle's eye was turned towards it and that I heard him say, "My poor boy! I wonder where is he now!" My heart swelled, my chest heaved, the tears coursed slowly down my cheeks, as I asked myself, "Shall I ever see them more ?" Oh, how little, how very little to us are the accustomed blessings of our life till some change has robbed us of them, and how dear are they when lost to us! My uncle's dark foreboding that we should never meet again on earth, came for the first time forcibly to my mind, and my heart was full to bursting.

What could repay me for the agony of that moment as I thought of him, my first, my best, my only friend, whom I had deserted?
And how gladly would I have resigned my bright day-dawn of ambition to be once more beside his chair, to hear his voice, to see his smile, to feel his love for me! A loud laugh from the cabin roused me from my sad, depressing revery, and at the same instant Mike's well-known voice informed me that the captain was looking for me everywhere, as supper was on the table.

Little as I felt disposed to join the party at such a moment, as I knew there was no escaping Power, I resolved to make the best of matters; so after a few minutes I followed Mickey down the companion and entered the cabin.
The scene before me was certainly not calculated to perpetuate depressing thoughts.

At the head of a rude old-fashioned table, upon which figured several black bottles and various ill-looking drinking vessels of every shape and material, sat Fred Power; on his right was placed the skipper, on his left the doctor,--the bronzed, merry-looking, weather-beaten features of the one contrasting ludicrously with the pale, ascetic, acute-looking expression of the other.

Sparks, more than half-drunk, with the mark of a red-hot cigar upon his nether lip, was lower down; while Major Monsoon, to preserve the symmetry of the party, had protruded his head, surmounted by a huge red nightcap, from the berth opposite, and held out his goblet to be replenished from the punch-bowl.
"Welcome, thrice welcome, thou man of Galway!" cried out Power, as he pointed to a seat, and pushed a wine-glass towards me.