m, said, in a
voice tremulous with weakness:

"Father, I have heard every word you and Rody said."

"Well," replied her father, looking at her, "I supposed as much. I made
no secret of anything; however, keep to your bed--you're--"

"Father, I have changed my mind; you have neither my heart nor wish in
anything you're bent on this night."

"Changed your mind!" replied the Prophet, bitterly. "Oh! you're a real
woman, I suppose, like your mother; you'll drive some unfortunate man
to hate the world an all that's in it yet?"

"Father, I care as little about the world as you do; but still never
will I lay myself out to do anything that's wrong."

"You promised to assist us then in Mave Sullivan's business, for all
that," he replied. "You can break your word, too. Ah! real woman again."

"Sooner than keep that promise, father, now, I would willingly let the
last dhrop of blood out o' my heart--my unhappy heart--Father, you're
provin' yourself to be what I can't name. Listen to me--you're on the
brink o' destruction. Stop in time, an' fly, for there's a fate over
you. I dremt since I lay down--not more than a couple of hours ago--that
I saw the Tobacco Box you were lookin' for, in the hands of--"

"Don't bother or vex me with your d--d nonsense about dhrames," he
replied, in a loud and excited voice. "The curse o' Heaven on all
dhrames, an' every stuff o' the kind. Go to bed."

He slapped the door violently after him as he spoke, and left her to her
own meditations.

CHAPTER XXX. -- Self-sacrifice--Villany

Time passes now as it did on the night recorded in the preceding
chapter. About the hour of two o'clock, on the same night, a chaise was
standing at the cross roads of Tulnavert, in which a gentleman, a little
but not much the worse of liquor, sat in a mood redolent of anything but
patience. Many ejaculations did he utter, and some oaths, in consequence
of the delay of certain parties whom he expected to meet there. At
length the noise of many feet was heard, and in the course of a few
minutes a body of men advanced in the darkness, one of whom approached
the chaise, and asked--"Is that Masther Dick?"

"Master Dick, sirrah: no, it's not."

"Then there must be some mistake," replied the fellow, who was a
stranger; "and as it's a runaway match, by gorra, it would never do to
give the girl to the wrong person. It was Masther Dick that the Prophet
desired us to inquire for."

"There is a mistake, my fri