The place appointed for their interview was a small paddock shaded by alders, behind her father’s garden, and thither, with trembling limbs and palpitating heart, did the young and graceful daughter of Bodagh Buie proceed.

For a considerable time, that is to say, for three long years before this delicious appointment, had Connor O’Donovan and Una been wrapped in the elysium of mutual love.  At mass, at fair, and at market, had they often and often met, and as frequently did their eyes search each other out, and reveal in long blushing glances the state of their respective hearts.  Many a time did he seek an opportunity to disclose what he felt, and as often, with confusion, and fear, and delight, did she afford him what he sought.  Thus did one opportunity after another pass away, and as often did he form the towering resolution to reveal his affection if he were ever favored with another.  Still would some disheartening reflection, arising from the uncommon gentleness and extreme modesty of his character, throw a damp upon his spirit.  He questioned his own penetration; perhaps she was in the habit of glancing as much at others as she glanced at him.  Could it be possible that the beautiful daughter of Bodagh Buie, the wealthiest man, and of his wife, the proudest woman, within a large circle of the country, would love the son of Fardorougha Donovan, whose name had, alas, become so odious and unpopular?  But then the blushing face, and dark lucid eyes, and the long earnest glance, rose before his imagination, and told him that, let the difference in the character and the station of their parents be what it might, the fair dark daughter of O’Brien was not insensible to him, nor to the anxieties he felt.

The circumstance which produced the first conversation they ever had arose from an incident of a very striking and singular character.  About a week before the evening in question, one of Bodagh Buie’s bee-skeps hived, and the young colony, though closely watched and pursued, directed their course to Fardorougha’s house, and settled in the mouth of the chimney.  Connor, having got a clean sheet, secured them, and was about to submit them to the care of the Bodagh’s servants, when it was suggested that the duty of bringing them home devolved on himself, inasmuch as he was told they would not remain, unless placed in a new skep by the hands of the person on whose property they had settled.  While on his way to the Bodagh’s he was accosted in the following words by one of O’Brien’s servants: 

“Connor, there’s good luck before you, or the bees wouldn’t pick you out amongst all the rest o’ the neighbors.  You ought to hould up your head, man.  Who knows what mainin’s in it?”

“Why, do you b’lieve that bees sittin’ wid one is a sign o’ good luck?”

“Surely I do.  Doesn’t every one know it to be thrue?  Connor, you’re a good-lookin’ fellow, an’ I need scarcely tell you that we have a purty girl at home; can you lay that an’ that together?  Arrah, be my sowl, the richest honey ever the same bees’ll make, is nothin’ but alloways, compared wid that purty mouth of her own!  A honey-comb is a fool to it.”