it's well to have them spared, Owen dear; sure I'd
rather a thousand times beg from door to door, and have my childher to
look at, than be in comfort widout them."

"Beg: that 'ud go hard wid me, Kathleen. I'd work--I'd live on next to
nothing all the year round; but to see the crathurs that wor dacently
bred up brought to that, I couldn't bear it, Kathleen--'twould break
the heart widin in me. Poor as they are, they have the blood of kings
in their veins; and besides, to see a M'Carthy beggin' his bread in the
country where his name was once great--The M'Carthy More, that was their
title-no, acushla, I love them as I do the blood in my own veins; but
I'd rather see them in the arms of God in heaven, laid down dacently
with their little sorrowful faces washed, and their little bodies
stretched out purtily before my eyes--I would--in the grave-yard there
beyant, where all belonging to me lie, than have it cast up to them, or
have it said, that ever a M'Carthy was seen beggin' on the highway."

"But, Owen, can you strike out no plan for us that 'ud put us in the way
of comin' round agin? These poor ones, if we could hould out for two or
three year, would soon be able to help us."

"They would--they would. I'm thinkin' this day or two of a plan: but I'm
doubtful whether it 'ud come to anything."

"What is it, acushla? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, any way."

"I'm goin' to go to Dublin. I'm tould that the landlord's come home from
France, and that he's there now; and if I didn't see him, sure I could
see the agent. Now, Kathleen, my intintion 'ud be to lay our case before
the head landlord himself, in hopes he might hould back his hand, and
spare us for a while. If I had a line from the agent, or a scrape of a
pen, that I could show at home to some of the nabors, who knows but I
could borry what 'ud set us up agin! I think many of them 'ud be sorry
to see me turned out; eh, Kathleen?"

The Irish are an imaginative people; indeed, too much so for either
their individual or national happiness. And it is this and superstition,
which also depends much upon imagination, that makes them so easily
influenced by those extravagant dreams that are held out to them by
persons who understand their character.

When Kathleen heard the plan on which Owen founded his expectations of
assistance, her dark melancholy eye flashed with a portion of its former
fire; a transient vivacity lit up her sickly features, and she turned a
s