While she spoke, Dalton’s mind appeared to have been stirred into something like a consciousness of his situation, and his memory to have been brought back, as it were, from the wild and turbulent images, which had impaired its efficacy, to a personal recollection of circumstances that had ceased to affect him.  His features, for instance, became more human, his eye more significant of his feeling, and his whole manner more quiet and restored.  He looked upon the narrator with an awakened interest, surveyed Darby, as if he scarcely knew how or why he came there, and then sighed deeply.  Mave proceeded: 

“‘I am an outcast now,’ said poor Peggy; ’I have neither house nor home; I have no father, no mother, no brother, an’ he that I loved, an’ said that he loved me, has deserted me.  Oh,’ said she, ’I have nothing to care for, an’ nobody to care for me now, an’ what was dearest of all—­my good name—­is gone:  no one will shelter me, although I thought of nothing but my love for Thomas Dalton!’ She was scorned, Thomas Dalton, she was insulted and abused by women who knew her innocence and her goodness till she met him; every tongue was against her, every hand was against her, and every door was closed against her; no, not every one—­the young woman she spoke to, with tears in her eyes, out of compassion for one so young and unfortunate, brought Peggy Murtagh home, and cried with her, and gave her hope, and consoled her, and pleaded with her father and mother for the poor deluded girl in such a way that they forgot her misfortune and sheltered her; till, after her brother’s death, she was taken in again to her own father’s house.  Now, Tom, wouldn’t you like to oblige that girl who was kind to poor Peggy Murtagh?”

“It was in Jerry Sullivan’s—­it was into your father’s house she was taken.”

“It was Tom; and the young woman who befriended Peggy Murtagh is now standin’ by your side and asks you to let Darby Skinadre go; do, then, let him go, for the sake of that young woman!”

Mave, on concluding, looked up into his face, and saw that his eyes were moist; he then smiled moodily, and, placing his hand upon her head in an approving manner, said—­

“You wor always good, Mave—­here, set Darby free; but my mind’s uneasy; I’m not right, I doubt:—­nor as I ought to be; but I’ll tell you what—­I’ll go back towards home wid you, if you’ll tell me more about Peggy.”

“Do so,” she replied, delighted at such a proposal; “an’ I will tell you many a thing about her; an’ you, Darby,” she added, turning round to that individual—­short, however, as the time was, the exulting, but still trembling usurer was making his way, at full speed, towards his own house; so that she was spared the trouble of advising him, as she had intended, to look to his safety as well as he could.  Such was the gentle power with which Mave softened and subdued this ferocious and unsettled young man to her wishes; and, indeed, so forcible in general was her firm but serene enthusiasm, that wherever the necessity for exerting it occurred, it was always crowned with success.