Betty, darling,' said he, in his most
coaxing tone; 'and tell me what it is I have done?'

'You mean what you are trying to do; but what, please the Virgin, we'll not
let you!'

'What is _that_?'

'And what, weak and ill, and dying as I am, I've strength enough left in me
to prevent, Mathew Kearney--and if you'll give me that Bible there, I'll
kiss it, and take my oath that, if he marries her, he'll never put foot in
a house of mine, nor inherit an acre that belongs to me; and all that I'll
leave in my will shall be my--well, I won't say what, only it's something
he'll not have to pay a legacy duty on. Do you understand me now, or ain't
I plain enough yet?'

'No, not yet. You'll have to make it clearer still.'

'Faith, I must say you did not pick up much cuteness from your adopted
daughter.'

'Who is she?'

'The Greek hussy that you want to marry my nephew, and give a dowry to out
of the estate that belongs to your son. I know it all, Mathew. I wasn't two
hours in the house before my old woman brought me the story from Mary. Ay,
stare if you like, but they all know it below-stairs, and a nice way you
are discussed in your own house! Getting a promise out of a poor boy in a
brain fever, making him give a pledge in his ravings! Won't it tell well
in a court of justice, of a magistrate, a county gentleman, a Kearney of
Kilgobbin? Oh! Mathew, Mathew, I'm ashamed of you!'

'Upon my oath, you're making me ashamed of myself that I sit here and
listen to you,' cried he, carried beyond all endurance. 'Abusing, ay,
blackguarding me this last hour about a lying story that came from the
kitchen. It's you that ought to be ashamed, old lady. Not, indeed, for
believing ill of an old friend--for that's nature in you--but for not
having common sense, just common sense to guide you, and a little common
decency to warn you. Look now, there is not a word--there is not a syllable
of truth in the whole story. Nobody ever thought of your nephew asking
my niece to marry him; and if _he_ did, she wouldn't have him. She looks
higher, and she has a right to look higher than to be the wife of an Irish
squireen.'

'Go on, Mathew, go on. You waited for me to be as I am now before you had
courage for words like these.'

'Well, I ask your pardon, and ask it in all humiliation and sorrow. My
temper--bad luck to it!--gets the better, or, maybe, it's the worse, of me
at times, and I say fifty things that I know I don't feel--just the way
sai