“Dear, dear papa,” she said, “who could have thought of injuring you—­you with your angry tongue, but your generous and charitable and noble heart?” and again she wound her exquisite and lovely arms about his neck and kissed him, whilst a fresh gush of tears came to her eyes.

“Come, Helen—­come, love, be quiet now, or I shall not tell you any thing more about my rescue by that gallant young fellow standing before you.”

This was followed, on her part, by another glance at Reilly, and the glance was as speedily followed by a blush, and again a host of tumultuous emotions crowded around his heart.

The old man, placing her head upon his bosom, kissed and patted her, after which he related briefly, and in such a way as not, if possible, to excite her afresh, the circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted.  At the close, however, when he came to the part which Reilly had borne in the matter, and dwelt at more length on his intrepidity and spirit, and the energy of character and courage with which the quelled the terrible Rapparee, he was obliged to stop for a moment, and say,

“Why, Helen, what is the matter, my darling?  Are you getting ill again?  Your little heart is going at a gallop—­bless me, how it pit-a-pats.  There, now, you’ve heard it all—­here I am, safe—­and there stands the gentleman to whom, under God, we are both indebted for it.  And now let us have dinner, darling, for we have not dined?”

Apologies on the part of Reilly, who really had dined, were flung to the winds by the old squire.

“What matter, Willy? what matter, man?—­sit at the table, pick something—­curse it, we won’t eat you.  Your dress? never mind your dress.  I am sure Helen here will not find fault with it.  Come, Helen, use your influence, love.  And you, sir, Willy Reilly, give her your arm.”  This he added in consequence of dinner having been announced while he spoke; and so they passed into the dining-room.

CHAPTER III.—­Daring Attempt of the Red Rapparee

—­Mysterious Disappearance of His Gang—­The Avowal

We must go back a little.  When Helen sank under the dreadful intelligence of the attempt made to assassinate her father, we stated at the time that she was not absolutely insensible; and this was the fact.  Reilly, already enraptured by such wonderful grace and beauty as the highest flight of his imagination could never have conceived, when called upon by her father to carry her to the sofa, could scarcely credit his senses that such a lovely and precious burden should ever be entrusted to him, much less borne in his very arms.  In order to prevent her from falling, he was literally obliged to throw them around her, and, to a certain extent, to press her—­for the purpose of supporting her—­against his heart, the pulsations of which were going at a tremendous speed.  There was, in fact, something so soft,