at all. Now, Susan, it would cut me to the
heart to find that you would become a hathen on this touching and trying
occasion."

"I'll pray to God, Denis. Isn't that the way to act under afflictions?"

"Decidedly. There is no other legitimate mode of quelling a heart-ache.
And, Susan, when you go to supplication you are at liberty to mention my
name--no, not yet; but if I were once consecrated you might. However, it
is better to sink this; say nothing about me when you pray, for, to
tell you I truth, I believe you have as much influence above--_super
astra_--as I have. There is one argument which I am anxious to press
upon you. It is a very simple but a very respectable one after all. I
am not all Ireland. You will find excellent good husbands even in this
parish. There is, as the old proverb says, as good fish in the say as
ever were caught. Do you catch one of them. For me, Susan, the
vineyard claims me; I must, as I said, cultivate the grape. We must,
consequently--hem!--we must--hem!--hem!--consequently strive to
forget--hem!--I say, to forget each other. It is a trial--I know--a
desperte visitation, poor fawn, upon your feelings; but, as I said,
destiny will be triumphant. What is decreed, is decreed--I must go to
Maynooth."

Susan rose, and her eyes flashed with an indignant sense of the
cold-blooded manner in which he advised her to select another husband.
She was an illiterate girl, but the purity of her feeling supplied the
delicacy which reading and a knowledge of more refined society would
have given her.

"Is it from your lips, Denis," she said, "that I hear sich a mane and
low-minded an advice? Or do you think that with my weak, and I now see,
foolish heart, settled upon you, I could turn round and fix my love upon
the first that might ax me? Denis, you promised before God to be mine,
and mine only; you often said and swore that you loved me above any
human being; but I now see that you only intended to lead me into sin
and disgrace, for indeed, and before God I don't think--I don't--I
don't--believe that you ever loved me."

A burst of grief, mingled with indignation and affliction, followed the
words she had uttered. Denis felt himself called on for a vindication,
and he was resolved to give it.

"Susan," he returned, "your imagination is erroneous. By all the
classical authors that ever were written, you are antipodialry opposed
to facts. What harm is there, seeing that you and I can never be joine