“Father dear,” she returned, interrupting him, “I would have told you and my mother, but that I was afraid.”

There was something so utterly innocent and artless in this reply, that each of the three persons present felt sensibly affected by its extreme and childlike simplicity.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Una,” continued the Bodagh, “but answer—­me truly, like a good girl, and I swear upon my reputation, that I won’t be angry.  Do you love the son of this Fardorougha?”

“Not, father, because he’s Fardorougha’s son,” said Una, whose face was still hid in her mother’s bosom; “I would rather he wasn’t.”

“But you do love him?”

“For three years he has scarcely been out of my mind.”

Something that might be termed a smile crossed the countenance of the Bodagh at this intimation.

“God help you for a foolish child!” said he; “you’re a poor counsellor when left to defend your own cause.”

“She won’t defend it by a falsehood, at all events,” observed her trustworthy and affectionate brother.

“No, she wouldn’t,” said the mother; “and I did her wrong a while ago, to say that she’d schame anything about it.”

“And are you and Connor O’Donovan promised to aich other?” inquired the father again.

“But it wasn’t I that proposed the promise,” returned Una.

“Oh, the desperate villain,” exclaimed her father, “to be guilty of such a thing! but you took the promise Una—­you did—­you did—­I needn’t ask.”

“No,” replied Una.

“No!” reechoed the father; “then you did not give the promise?”

“I mean,” she rejoined, “that you needn’t ask.”

“Oh, faith, that alters the case extremely.  Now, Una, this—­all this promising that has passed between you and Connor O’Donovan is all folly.  If you prove to be the good obedient girl that I hope you are, you’ll put him out of your head, and then you can give back to one another whatever promises you made.”

This was succeeded by a silence of more than a minute.  Una at length arose, and, with a composed energy of manner, that was evident by her sparkling eye and bloodless cheek, she approached her father, and calmly kneeling down, said slowly but firmly: 

“Father, if nothing else can satisfy you, I will give back my promise; but then, father, it will break my heart, for I know—­I feel—­how I love him, and how I am loved by him.”

“I’ll get you a better husband,” replied her father—­“far more wealthy and more respectable than he is.”

“I’ll give back the promise,” said she; “but the man is not living, except Connor O’Donovan, that will ever call me wife.  More wealthy! more respectable!—­Oh, it was only himself I loved.  Father, I’m on my knees before you, and before my mother.  I have only one request to make—­Oh, don’t break your daughter’s heart!”

“God direct us,” exclaimed her mother; “it’s hard to know how to act.  If it would go so hard upon her, sure—­”