ld tarmagint," he exclaimed, "you're statin' what you feel
to be false when you say so; right well you know that neither you nor I,
nor any one else, ever heard a lie from her lips, an' yet you have the
brass to say to the contrary."

"Father," said Sarah, "there's but one coorse for you; as for me, my
mind's made up--in this house I don't stay if she does."

"If you'd think of what I spoke to you about," he replied, "all would
soon be right wid us; but then you're so unraisonable, an' full of
foolish notions, that it's hard for me to know what to do, especially as
I wish to do all for the best."

"Well," rejoined Sarah, "I'll spake to you again, about it; at this time
I'm disturbed and unaisy in my mind; I'm unhappy--unhappy--an' I hardly
knows on what hand to turn. I'm afeared I was born for a hard fate, an'
that the day of my doom isn't far from me. All, father, is dark before
me--my heart is, indeed, low an' full of sorrow; an' sometimes I could
a'most tear any one that 'ud contradict me. Any way I'm unhappy."

As she uttered the last words, her father, considerably surprised at
the melancholy tenor of her language, looked at her, and perceived that,
whilst she spoke, her large black eyes were full of distress, and swam
in tears.

"Don't be a fool, Sarah," said he, "it's not a thrifle should make
any one cry in sich a world as this. If Charley Hanlon and you has
quarrelled, it was only the case with thousands before you. If he won't
marry you, maybe as good or better will; for sure, as the ould proverb
says, there's as good fish in the say as ever was catched. In the mane
time think what I said to you, an' all will be right."

Sarah looked not at him; but whilst he spoke, she hastily dried her
tears, and ere half a minute had passed, her face had assumed a firm
and somewhat of an indignant expression. Little, however, did her father
then dream of the surprising change which one short day had brought
about in her existence, nor of the strong passions which one unhappy
interview had awakened in her generous but unregulated heart.

CHAPTER XVIII. -- Love Wins the Race from Profligacy.

Donnel Dhu M'Gowan's reputation as a Prophecy-man arose, in the
first instance, as much on account of his mysterious pretensions to a
knowledge of the quack prophecies of his day--Pastorini, Kolumbkille,
&c, and such stuff--as from any pretensions he claimed to foretell the
future. In the course of time, however, by assum