Whilst he pronounced the words, a shower of tears gushed rapidly from his eyes and fell upon her beautiful features, and in the impressive tenderness of the moment, he caught her to his heart, and with rapturous distraction and despair kissed her lips and exclaimed, “She is dead!—­she is dead!—­an’ all that’s in the world is nothing to the love I had for her!”

“Stand aside, James,” said his sister Kathleen; “leave this instantly.  Forgive him, Bryan,” she said, looking at her lover with a burning brow, “he doesn’t know what he is doing.”

“No, Kathleen,” replied, her brother, with a choking voice, “neither for you nor for him, nor for a human crature, will I leave her.”

“James, I’m ashamed of you,” said Hanna, rapidly and energetically disengaging his arms from about the insensible girl; “have! you no respect for Dora?  If you love her as you say, you could hardly act as you did.”

“Why,” said he, staring at her, “what did I do?”

Bryan took him firmly by the arm, and said, “Come away, you foolish boy; I don’t think you know what you did.  Leave her to the girls.  There, she is recoverin’.”

She did soon recover; but weak and broken down as she was, no persuasion nor even authority could prevail upon her to remain at home.  Jemmy Burke, who had intended to offer Kathleen a seat upon his car, which, of course, she would not have accepted, was now outmanoeuvred by his wife, ’who got Dora beside herself, after having placed a sister of Tom M’Mahon’s beside him.

At length, the coffin was brought out, and the keene raised over it, on the conclusion of which it was placed in the hearse, and the procession began to move on.

There is nothing in the rural districts of this country that so clearly indicates the respect entertained for any family as the number of persons which, when a death takes place in it, attend the funeral.  In such a case, the length of the procession is the test of esteem in which the party has been held.  Mrs. M’Mahon’s funeral was little less than a mile long.  All the respectable farmers and bodaghs, as they call them, or half-sirs in the parish, were in attendance, as a mark of, respect for the virtues of the deceased, and of esteem for the integrity and upright spirit of the family that had been deprived of her so unexpectedly.

Hycy and his friend, Harry Clinton, of course rode together, Finigan, the schoolmaster, keeping as near them as he could; but not so near as to render his presence irksome to them, when he saw that they had no wish for it.

“Well, Harry,” said his companion, “what do you think of the last scene?”

“You allude to Cavanagh’s handsome young son, and the very pretty girl that fainted, poor thing!”

“Of course I do,” replied Hycy.

“Why,” said the other, “I think the whole thing was very simple, and consequently very natural.  The young fellow, who is desperately in love—­there is no doubt of that—­thought she had died; and upon my soul, Hycy, there is a freshness and a purity in the strongest raptures of such a passion, that neither you nor I can dream of.  I think, however, I can understand, or guess at rather, the fulness of heart and the tenderness by which he was actuated.”