He received no reply.

“I say, Susy—­dilecta juventutis meae—­touching the recommendation—­now don’t be crying—­touching the recommendation of another husband, by all the classics that ever were mistranslated, I meant nothing but the purest of consolation.  If I did, may I be reduced to primeval and aboriginal ignorance!  But you know yourself, that they never prospered who prevented a rara avis like me from entering the church—­from laboring in the vineyard, and cultivating the grape.  Don’t be hathenish; but act with a philosophy suitable to so dignified an occasion—­Farewell! Macte virtute, and be firm.  I swear again by all the class—­”

The appearance of a neighbor caused him to cut short his oath.  Seeing that the man approached the house, he drew off, and returned home, more seriously affected by Susan’s agitation than he was willing to admit even to himself.

This triumph over his affection was, in fact, only the conquest of one passion over another.  His attachment to Susan Connor was certainly sincere, and ere the prospects of his entering Maynooth were unexpectedly brought near him, by the interference of Father Finnerty, his secret purpose all along had been to enter with her into the state of matrimony, rather than into the church.  Ambition, however, is beyond all comparison the most powerful principle of human conduct, and so Denny found it.  Although his unceremonious abandonment of Susan appeared heartless and cruel, yet it was not effected on his part without profound sorrow and remorse.  The two principles, when they began to struggle in his heart for supremacy, resembled the rival destinies of Caesar and Mark Antony.  Love declined in the presence of ambition; and this, in proportion as all the circumstances calculated to work upon the strong imagination of a young man naturally fond of power, began to assume an appearance of reality.  To be, in the course of a few years, a bona fide priest; to possess unlimited sway over the fears and principles of the people; to be endowed with spiritual gifts to he knew not what extent; and to enjoy himself as he had an opportunity of seeing Father Finnerty and his curate do, in the full swing of convivial pleasure, upon the ample hospitality of those who, in addition to this, were ready to kiss the latchet of his shoes—­were, it must be admitted, no inconsiderable motives in influencing the conduct of a person reared in an humble condition of life.  The claims of poor Susan, her modesty, her attachment, and her beauty—­were all insufficient to prevail against such a host of opposing motives; and the consequence, though bitter, and subversive of her happiness, was a final determination on the part of Denny, to acquaint her, with a kind of ex-officio formality, that all intercourse upon the subject of their mutual attachment must cease between them.  Notwithstanding his boasted knowledge, however, he was ignorant of sentiment, and accordingly confined himself, as I have intimated, to a double species of argument; that is to say, first, the danger and sin of opposing the wishes of the church which had claimed him, as he said, to labor in the vineyard; and secondly, the undoubted fact, that there were plenty of good husbands besides himself in the world, from some one of which, he informed her, he had no doubt, she could be accommodated.