that their emigration to America was certain, she manifested a depression so profound and melancholy, that the heart of her brother Bryan, who alone knew its cause, bled for her.  This by the rest of the family was imputed to the natural regret she felt, in common with themselves, at leaving the old places for ever, with this difference to be sure—­they imagined that she felt the separation more acutely than they did.  Still, as the period for their departure approached, there was not one of the family, notwithstanding what she felt herself, who labored so incessantly to soothe and sustain the spirits of her father, who was fast sinking under the prospect of being “forever removed,” as he said, “from the places his heart had grown into.”  She was in fact the general consoler of the family, and yet her eye scarcely ever met that of her brother that a tear did not tremble in it, and she felt disposed to burst out into an agony of unrestrained grief.

It was one evening in the week previous to their departure, that she was on her return from Ballymacan, when on passing a bend of the road between Carriglass and Fenton’s farm, she met the cause of the sorrow which oppressed her, in the handsome person of James Cavanaugh, to whom she had been for more than a year and a half deeply and devotedly attached, but without the knowledge of any individual living, save her lover himself and her brother Bryan.

On seeing him she naturally started, but it was a start of pleasure, and she felt her cheek flush and again get pale, and her heart palpitated, then was still a moment, and again resumed its tumultuous pulsations.

“Blessed be God, my darlin’ Dora, that I’ve met you at last,” said James; “in heaven’s name how did it happen that we haven’t met for such a length of time?”

“I’m sure that’s more than I can tell,” replied Dora, “or rather it’s what both, you and I know the cause of too well.”

“Ah, poor Dora,” he exclaimed, “for your sake I don’t wish to spake about it at all; it left me many a sore heart when I thought of you.”

Dora’s natural pale cheek mantled, and her eyes deepened with a beautiful severity, as she hastily turned them on him and said, “what do you mane, James?”

“About poor Bryan’s conduct at the election,” he replied, “and that fifty-pound note; and may hell consume it and him that tempted him with it!”

“Do you forget,” she said, “that you’re spaking to his sister that knows the falsehood of it all; an’ how dare you in my presence attempt to say or think that Bryan M’Mahon would or could do a mane or dishonest act?  I’m afeard, James, there’s a kind of low suspicion in your family that’s not right, and I have my reasons for thinking so.  I fear there’s a want of true generosity among you; and if I could be sure of it, I tell you now, that whatever it might cost me, I’d never—­but what am I sayin’? that’s past.”

“Past! oh, why do you spake that way, Dora dear?”