"Oh!" observed the father, with a smile, "divil a one o' you girls,
Ellen, ever thinks much of father or mother when you have made up your
minds to run away wid your _buchaleens_--sorra a taste."

"_Arra_, Brian, will you have sinse," said his wife; "why wouldn't they
think o' them?"

"Did you do it?" he asked, winking at the rest, "when you took a brave
start wid myself across Crockaniska, one summer Sunday night, long ago.
Be me sowl, you proved youself as supple as a two-year-old--cleared,
drain and ditch like a bird--and had me, when we reached my uncle's,
that the ayes wor startin' out o' my head."

"Bad scran to him, the ould slingpoker! Do you hear him," she exclaimed,
laughing--"never mind him, children!--troth, he went at sich a snail's
pace that one 'ud think it was to confession he was goin', and that he
did nothing but think of his sins as he went along."

"That was bekaise I knew that I had the penance before me," he replied,
laughing also.

"Any how," replied his wife, "our case was not like their's. We were
both Catholics, and knew that we'd have the consent of our friends,
besides; we only made a runaway because it was the custom of the
counthry, glory be to God!"

"Ay, ay," rejoined her husband; "but, faith, it was you that proved
yourself the active girl that night, at any rate. However, I hope the
Lord will grant her grace to go, wid him, at all events, for, upon my
sowl, it would be a great boast for the Catholics--bekaise we know there
is one thing sure, and that is, that the divil a long she'd be wid
him till he'd have left her fit to face Europe as a Christian and a
Catholic, bekaise every wife ought to go wid her husband, barrin' he's a
Prodestant."

Poor Ellen paid little attention to this conversation. She felt deeply
depressed, and, after many severe struggles to restrain herself, at last
burst into tears.

"Come, darlin'," said her father, "don't let this affair cast you
down so much; all will yet turn out for the betther, I hope. Cheer up,
_avillish_; maybe that, down-hearted as you are, I have good news for
you. Your ould sweetheart was here this evenin', and hopes soon to have
his pardon--he's a dacent boy, and has good blood in his veins; and as
for his joinin' O'Donnel, it wasn't a a bad heart set him to do it, but
the oppression that druv him, as it did many others, to take the steps
he took--oppression on the one side, and bitterness of heart on the
other."

"I saw him