“Father,” said Sarah, “there’s but one coorse for you; as for me, my mind’s made up—­in this house I don’t stay if she does.”

“If you’d think of what I spoke to you about,” he replied, “all would soon be right wid us; but then you’re so unraisonable, an’ full of foolish notions, that it’s hard for me to know what to do, especially as I wish to do all for the best.”

“Well,” rejoined Sarah, “I’ll spake to you again, about it; at this time I’m disturbed and unaisy in my mind; I’m unhappy—­unhappy—­an’ I hardly knows on what hand to turn.  I’m afeared I was born for a hard fate, an’ that the day of my doom isn’t far from me.  All, father, is dark before me—­my heart is, indeed, low an’ full of sorrow; an’ sometimes I could a’most tear any one that ’ud contradict me.  Any way I’m unhappy.”

As she uttered the last words, her father, considerably surprised at the melancholy tenor of her language, looked at her, and perceived that, whilst she spoke, her large black eyes were full of distress, and swam in tears.

“Don’t be a fool, Sarah,” said he, “it’s not a thrifle should make any one cry in sich a world as this.  If Charley Hanlon and you has quarrelled, it was only the case with thousands before you.  If he won’t marry you, maybe as good or better will; for sure, as the ould proverb says, there’s as good fish in the say as ever was catched.  In the mane time think what I said to you, an’ all will be right.”

Sarah looked not at him; but whilst he spoke, she hastily dried her tears, and ere half a minute had passed, her face had assumed a firm and somewhat of an indignant expression.  Little, however, did her father then dream of the surprising change which one short day had brought about in her existence, nor of the strong passions which one unhappy interview had awakened in her generous but unregulated heart.

CHAPTER XVIII. —­ Love Wins the Race from Profligacy.

Donnel Dhu M’Gowan’s reputation as a Prophecy-man arose, in the first instance, as much on account of his mysterious pretensions to a knowledge of the quack prophecies of his day—­Pastorini, Kolumbkille, &c, and such stuff—­as from any pretensions he claimed to foretell the future.  In the course of time, however, by assuming to be a seventh son, he availed himself of the credulity and ignorance of the people, and soon added a pretended insight into futurity to his powers of interpreting Pastorini, and all the catchpenny trash of the kind which then circulated among the people.  This imposture, in course of time, produced its effect, Many, it is true, laughed at his impudent assumptions, but on the other hand, hundreds were strongly impressed with a belief in the mysterious and rhapsodical predictions which he was in the habit of uttering.  Among the latter class we may reckon simple-hearted Jerry Sullivan and family, all of whom, Mave herself included, placed the most religious confidence in the oracles he gave