educated; and once
again at a little tea-party at Mrs. McKeon's, which had been got up
on purpose by Feemy's friends, to ask her husband as was to be--when
first people said it was a settled thing. Oh! that was a happy night
to Feemy, for her friends then all thought that her intimacy with
Ussher was as good a thing as could be wished for; and when Feemy
danced the whole night with him, the Miss McKeons all thought what a
happy girl she was;--and that night she was happy. Then he first told
her she should be his wife, and swore that he never had loved, and
never would love any but her; and oh, how truly she believed him! Why
should she not? was not she happy to love him, and why should not he
be as much so to love her? If any one had whispered a word of caution
to her, how she would have hated the whisperer! But there was no
one to whisper caution to Feemy, and she had given all she had--her
heart, her love, her obedience, her very soul--to him, without having
any guarantee that she really had aught in return.

It was not because she began to doubt her lover that she was now
occasionally fretful and uneasy. No; the idea to doubt him never
reached her, but nevertheless she felt that things were not quite as
they should be.

He seldom talked of marriage though he said enough of love; and when
he did, it was with vague promises, saying how happy they would be
when she was his wife, how much more comfortable her home would be,
how nicely she would receive her friends in Mohill. These, and little
jokes about their future _menage_ in a married state, were all he had
ever said. She never asked him--indeed, she did not dare to ask; she
did not like to press him; and Captain Ussher had a frown about him,
which, somehow, Feemy had already learnt to fear.

He treated her too a little cavalierly, and her father and brother
not a little. He ridiculed openly all that with her, hitherto, had
been most sacred--her priest and her religion. She was not angry at
this; she was hardly aware of it; and, in fact, was gradually falling
into his way of thinking; but the effect upon her was the same--it
made her uncomfortable. A girl should never obey her lover till she
is married to him; she may comply with his wishes, but she should not
allow herself to be told with authority that this or that should be
her line of conduct.

Now Feemy had so given herself up to her lover, that she was obedient
to him in all things; to him, even in opposit