h you?"

Gerald looked at his two daughters and sighed unconsciously. "It's not
good news," he proceeded, "in one sense, but it is in another; it's
good news to all my family but that girl sittin' there," pointing to
Kathleen.

Unfortunately no evil intelligence could have rendered the unhappy
girl's cheek paler than it was; so that, so far as appearances went, it
was impossible to say what effect this startling communication had upon
her.

"I was down wid Misther Clinton," he proceeded; "he hard a report that
there was about to be a makin' up of the differences between Kathleen
there and Bryan, and he sent for me to say, that, for the girl's
sake--who he said was, as he had heard from all quarthers, a
respectable, genteel girl--he couldn't suffer a young man so full of
thraichery and desate, as he had good raisons to know Bryan M'Mahon
was, to impose himself upon her or her family. He cautioned me," he
proceeded, "and all of us against him; and said that if I allowed a
marriage to take place between him and my daughter, he'd soon bring
disgrace upon her and us, as well as himself. 'You may take my word for
it, Mr. Cavanagh,' says he, 'that is not a thrifle 'ud make me send for
you in sich a business; but, as I happen to know the stuff he is made
of, I couldn't bear to see him take a decent family in so distastefully.
To my own knowledge, Cavanagh,' said he, 'he'd desave a saint, much less
your innocent and unsuspectin' daughter.'"

"But, father," said Hanna, "you know there's not a word of truth in that
report; and mayn't all that has been said, or at least some of what has
been said against Bryan, be as much a lie as that? Who on earth: could
sich a report come from?"

"I axed Mr. Clinton the same question," said the father, "and it appears
that it came from Bryan himself."

"Oh, God forbid!" exclaimed Hanna; "for, if it's a thing that he said
that, he'd say anything."

"I don't know," returned the father, "I only spake it as I hard it, and,
what is more, I believe it--I believe it after what I hard this day;
everybody knows him now--man, woman, an' child, Gheernah! what an escape
that innocent girl had of him!"

Kathleen rose up, went over to her father, and, placing her hand upon
his shoulder, was about to speak, but she checked herself; and, after
looking at them all, as it were by turns, with a look of distraction and
calm but concentrated agony, she returned again to her seat, but did not
sit down.