arcely any intercourse. Hanna, 'tis true, and Dora had an
opportunity of exchanging a few words occasionally, but although the
former felt much anxiety for a somewhat lengthened and if possible
confidential conversation with her sparkling little friend, yet the
latter kept proudly if not haughtily silent on one particular subject,
feeling as she did, that anything like a concession on her part was
humiliating, and might be misconstrued into a disposition to compromise
the independence of her brother and family. But even poor Dora,
notwithstanding her affectionate heart and high spirit, had her own
sorrows to contend with, sorrows known only to her brother Bryan, who
felt disposed to befriend her in them as far as he could. So indeed
would every one of the family, had they known them, for we need scarcely
say that the warm and generous girl was the centre in which all their
affections met. And this indeed was only justice to her, inasmuch as she
was willing on any occasion to sacrifice her interests, her wishes, or
anything connected with her own welfare, to their individual or general
happiness. We have said, however, that she had her own sorrows, and
this was true. From the moment she felt assured that their emigration
to America was certain, she manifested a depression so profound and
melancholy, that the heart of her brother Bryan, who alone knew its
cause, bled for her. This by the rest of the family was imputed to the
natural regret she felt, in common with themselves, at leaving the old
places for ever, with this difference to be sure--they imagined that she
felt the separation more acutely than they did. Still, as the period
for their departure approached, there was not one of the family,
notwithstanding what she felt herself, who labored so incessantly to
soothe and sustain the spirits of her father, who was fast sinking under
the prospect of being "forever removed," as he said, "from the places
his heart had grown into." She was in fact the general consoler of the
family, and yet her eye scarcely ever met that of her brother that a
tear did not tremble in it, and she felt disposed to burst out into an
agony of unrestrained grief.

It was one evening in the week previous to their departure, that she
was on her return from Ballymacan, when on passing a bend of the road
between Carriglass and Fenton's farm, she met the cause of the sorrow
which oppressed her, in the handsome person of James Cavanaugh, to
whom she