“Oh,” replied Reilly, who had gone over near her, “but my soul will not be satisfied without a stronger affirmation.  This moment is the great crisis of my life and happiness.  I love you beyond all the power of language or expression.  You tremble, dear Miss Folliard, and you weep; let me wipe those precious tears away.  Oh, would to God that you loved me!”

He caught her hand—­it was not withdrawn—­he pressed it as he had done the evening before.  The pressure was returned—­his voice melted into tenderness that was contagious and irresistible:  “Say, dearest Helen, star of my life and of my fate, oh, only say that I am not indifferent to you.”

They were both standing near the chimney-piece as he spoke—­“only say,” he repeated, “that I am not indifferent to you.”

“Well, then,” she replied, “you are not indifferent to me.”

“One admission more, my dearest life, and I am happy forever.  You love me? say it, dearest, say it—­or, stay, whisper it, whisper it—­you love me!”

“I do,” she whispered in a burst of tears.

CHAPTER IV.—­His Rival makes his Appearance, and its Consequences

—­A Sapient Project for our Hero’s Conversion

We will not attempt to describe the tumult of delight which agitated Reilly’s heart on his way home, after this tender interview with the most celebrated Irish beauty of that period.  The term Cooleen Bawn, in native Irish, has two meanings, both of which were justly applied to her, and met in her person.  It signifies fair locks, or, as it may be pronounced fair girl; and in either sense is peculiarly applicable to a blonde beauty, which she was.  The name of Cooleen Bawn was applied to her by the populace, whose talent for finding out and bestowing epithets indicative either of personal beauty or deformity, or of the qualities of the mind or character, be they good or evil, is, in Ireland, singularly felicitous.  In the higher ranks, however, she was known as “The Lily of the Plains of Boyne,” and as such she was toasted by all parties, not only in her own native county, but throughout Ireland, and at the viceregal entertainments in the Castle of Dublin.  At the time of which we write, the penal laws were in operation against the Roman Catholic population of the country, and her father, a good-hearted man by nature, was wordy and violent by prejudice, and yet secretly kind and friendly to many of that unhappy creed, though by no means to all.  It was well known, however, that in every thing that was generous and good in his character, or in the discharge of his public duties as a magistrate, he was chiefly influenced by the benevolent and liberal principles of his daughter, who was a general advocate for the oppressed, and to whom, moreover, he could deny nothing.  This accounted for her popularity, as it does for the extraordinary veneration and affection with which her name and misfortunes are mentioned down to the present day.  The worst point in her father’s character was that he never could be prevailed on to forgive an injury, or, at least, any act that he conceived to be such, a weakness or a vice which was the means of all his angelic and lovely daughter’s calamities.