“Troth,” said her father, taking up the argument where she left it, “I dunno how I’ll look the respectable young man in the face afther the way you insulted him.  Why on airth wouldn’t you dance wid him?”

“Because, father, I don’t like him.”

“An’ why don’t you like him?” asked her mother.  “Where is there his aquil for either face or figure in the parish, or the barony itself?  But I know the cause of it; you could dance with Bryan M’Mahon.  But take this with you—­sorra ring ever Bryan M’Mahon will put on you wid my consent or your father’s, while there’s any hope of Hycy Burke at any rate.”

Kathleen, during this long harangue, sat smiling and sedate, turning her beautiful and brilliant eyes sometimes upon one parent, sometimes upon another, and occasionally glancing with imperturbable sweetness and good nature at her sister Hanna.  At length, on getting an opportunity of speaking, she replied,—­

“Don’t ask me, mother, to give anything in the way of encouragement to Hycy Burke; don’t ask me, I entrate you, for God’s sake—­the thing’s impossible, and I couldn’t do it.  I have no wish for his father’s money, nor any wish for the poor grandeur that you, mother dear, and my father, seem to set your heart upon.  I don’t like Hycy Burke—­I could never like him; and rather than marry him, I declare solemnly to God, I would prefer going into my grave.”

As she uttered the last words, which she did with an earnestness that startled them, her fine features became illuminated, as it were, with a serene and brilliant solemnity of expression that was strikingly impressive and beautiful.

“Why couldn’t you like him, now?” asked her father; “sure, as your mother says, there’s not his aquil for face or figure within many a mile of him?”

“But it’s neither face nor figure that I look to most, father.”

“Well, but think of his wealth, and the style he’ll live in, I’ll go bail, when he gets married.”

“That style maybe won’t make his wife happy.  No, father, it’s neither face, nor figure, nor style that I look to, but truth, pure affection, and upright principle; now, I know that Hycy Burke has neither truth, nor affection, nor principle; an’ I wondher, besides, that you could think of my ever marrying a man that has already destroyed the happiness of two innocent girls, an’ brought desolation, an’ sorrow, an’ shame upon two happy families.  Do you think that I will ever become the wife of a profligate?  An’ is it you, father, an’ still more you, mother, that’s a woman, that can urge me to think of joining my fate to that of a man that has neither shame nor principle?  I thought that if you didn’t respect decency an’ truth, and a regard for what is right and proper, that, at all events, you would respect the feelings of your child that was taught their value.”

Both parents felt somewhat abashed by the force of the truth and the evident superiority of her character; but in a minute or two her worthy father, from whose dogged obstinacy she inherited the firmness and resolution for which she had ever been remarkable, again returned to the subject.