h avoid it. I know it's hard to do so, but it's the difficulty
and the trial that calls upon us to have strength, otherwise what are
we better than them that we'd condemn or think little of for their own
weakness."

The truth and moral force of the words, and the firmness of manner that
marked Kathleen as she spoke, were immediately successful. The grief
of the two girls was at once hushed; and, after a slight pause, Mrs.
M'Mahon called Kathleen to her.

"Dear Kathleen," she said, "I did hope to see the day when you'd be
one of my own family, but it's not the will of God, it appears, that I
should; however, may His will be done! I hope still that day will
come, an' that your friends won't have any longer an objection to your
marriage wid Bryan. I am his mother, an' no one has a better right to
know his heart an' his temper, an' I can say, upon my dyin' bed, that a
better heart an' a better temper never was in man. I believe, Kathleen,
it was never known that a good son ever made a bad husband. However,
if it's God's will to bring you together, He will, and if it isn't, you
must only bear it patiently."

Bryan was silent, but his eye, from time to time, turned with a long
glance of love and sorrow upon Kathleen, whose complexion became pale
and red by turns. At length Dora, after her mother had concluded, went
over to Kathleen, and putting her arms around her neck, exclaimed, "Oh!
mother dear, something tells me that Kathleen will be my sisther yet,
an' if you'd ask her to promise--"

Kathleen looked down upon the beautiful and expressive features of the
affectionate girl, and gently raising her hand she placed it upon Dora's
lips, in order to prevent the completion of the sentence. On doing so
she received a sorrowful glance of deep and imploring entreaty from
Bryan, which she returned with another that seemed to reprove him for
doubting her affection, or supposing that such a promise was even
necessary. "No, Dora dear," she said, "I could make no promise without
the knowledge of my father and mother, or contrary to their wishes; but
did you think, darling, that such a thing was necessary?" She kissed the
sweet girl as she spoke, and Dora felt a tear on her cheek that was not
her own.

Mrs. M'Mahon had been looking with a kind of mournful admiration upon
Kathleen during this little incident, and then proceeded. "She says what
is right and true; and it would be wrong, my poor child, to ask her to
give such a promis