“Mother dear,” replied Susy, “what makes you speak that way?  Sure it wouldn’t be the little-sup o’ punch that Felix made you take that ’ud get into your head!”

“No, darlin’!  Look at the pair before us; there they go, the pride, both o’ them, God knows, of the whole parish; but still when I think of the bitterness of Felix’s friends, Susy, I can’t help being afeard.  His brother Hugh is a dark man, and his sister Maura is against it.  God pity them!  It’s a cruel world, acushla, when people like them can’t do as they’d wish to do.  But, Susy, you’re a child, and knows nothing at all about it.”

Felix and Alley walked on, unconscious of me ominous forebodings which the superstition of the affectionate woman prompted her to utter.  The arrangements for their marriage were on that night concluded, and the mother, after some feebly expressed misgivings, at which Felix and Alley laughed heartily, was induced, to consent that on the third Sunday following they should be joined in wedlock.  Had Felix been disposed to conceal his marriage from Hugh and Maura, at least until the eve of its occurrence, the publishing of their banns in the chapel would have, of course, disclosed it.  When his sister heard that the arrangements were completed, she poured forth a torrent of abuse against what she considered the folly and simplicity of a mere boy, who allowed himself to be caught in the snares of an artful girl, with nothing but a handsome face to recommend her.  Felix received all this with good humor, and replied only in a strain of jocularity to every thing she said.

Hugh, on the other hand, contented himself with a single observation.  “Felix,” said he, “I won’t see you throw yourself away upon a girl that is no fit match for you.  If you can’t take care of yourself, I will.  Once for all, I tell you that this marriage must not take place.”

As he uttered these words his dark brows were bent, and his eyes flashed with a gleam of that ungovernable passion for which he was so remarkable.  Felix, at all times peaceable, and always willing to acknowledge his elder brother’s natural right to exercise a due degree of authority over him, felt that this was stretching it too far.  Still he made no reply, nor indeed did Hugh allow him time to retort, had he been so disposed.  They separated without more words, each resolved to accomplish his avowed purpose.

The opposition of Hugh and Maura to his marriage, only strengthened Felix’s resolution to make his beloved and misrepresented Alley Bawn, the rightful mistress of his hearth, as she already was of his affections.  Nay, his love burned for her with a purer and tenderer flame, when he looked upon the artless girl, and thought of the cruel hearts that would make her a martyr to a spirit so worldly-minded and selfish.  Their deep-rooted prejudice against her poverty, he delicately concealed from her, together with the length to which their opposition had gone.  As for himself, he acted precisely as if the approaching marriage had their full sanction; he saw Alley every day, became still more deeply enamored, and heard his sister’s indignant remonstrances without uttering a single syllable in reply.