This, however, is human nature.  To those who cannot understand such a character, we offer no apology—­to the few who do, none is necessary.

The courtship of Alley Bawn and Felix had arrived, on the fair-day of Ballaghmore, to a crisis which required decision on the part of the wooer.  They went in, as we have shown the reader, to a public-house.  Their conversation, which was only such as takes place in a thousand similar instances, we do not mean to detail.  It was tender and firm on the part of Felix, and affectionate between him and her.  With that high pride, which is only another name for humility, she urged him to forget her, “if it was not plasin’ to his frinds.  You know, Felix,” she continued, “that I am poor and you are rich, an’ I wouldn’t wish to be dragged into a family that couldn’t respect me.”

“Alley dear,” replied Felix, “I know that both Hugh and Maura love me in their hearts; and although they make a show of anger in the beginnin’, yet they’ll soon soften, and will love you as they do me.”

“Well, Felix,” replied Alley, “my mother and you are present; if my mother says I ought——­”

“I do, darling,” said her mother; “that is, I can’t feel any particular objection to it.  Yet somehow my mind is troubled.  I know that what he says is what will happen; but, for all that—­och, Felix, aroon, there’s something over me about the same match—­I don’t know—­I’m willin’ an’ I’m not willin’.”

They arose to depart; and as both families lived in the beautiful village of Ballydhas, which we have already described to the reader, of course their walk home was such as lovers could wish.

Evening had arrived; the placid summer sun shone down with a mild flood of light upon Ballaghmore and the surrounding country.  There was nothing in the evening whose external phenomena could depress any human heart.  The ocean lay like a mirror, on which the beams of the sun glistened in magnificent shafts, in whatsoever position you looked upon it.  Not a wave or a ripple broke the expansive sheet, that stretched away till it melted into the dipping sky; yet to the ear its mysterious and deep murmurs were audible, and the lonely eternal sobbing of the awful sea, struck upon the heart of the superstitious mother with a sense of fear and calamity.  Felix and Alley went before them, and the conversation which we are about to detail, took place between herself and her youngest daughter.

“Susy, darlin’,” said she, “you see the happy pair before us; but why is it, acushla, that my heart is sunk when I think of their marriage?  Do you hear that say?  There’s not a wave on it, but still it’s angry, if one can judge by its voice.  Darlin’ it’s a bad sign, for the same say isn’t always so.  Sometimes it is as asy as a sleepin’ baby, and sometimes, although its waves are quiet enough, it looks like a murderer asleep.  Now it breathes heavily avourneen, as if all was not right.  Susy, darlin’, I’m afeard, I say, that it’s a bad sign.”