eplied Dora, with animation, "I would
rather, ten times over, vote wrongly, than not vote from cowardice.
It's a mane, skulkin', shabby thing, to be afeard to vote when one has a
vote--it's unmanly."

"I know it is; and it was that very thought that made me vote. I felt
that it would look both mane and cowardly not to vote, and accordingly
I did vote."

"Ay, and you did right," replied his spirited sister, "and I don't care
who opposes you, I'll support you for it, through thick and thin."

"And I suppose you may say through right and wrong, too?"

"Ay, would I," she replied; "eh?--what am I sayin?--throth, I'm a little
madcap, I think. No, I won't support you through right and wrong--it's
only when you're right you may depend on me."

They had now been more than an hour strolling about the fields, when
Bryan, who did not feel himself quite so strong as he imagined he was,
proposed to return to his father's, where, by the way, he had been
conveyed from the chapel on the Sunday when he had been so severely
maltreated.

They accordingly did so, for he felt himself weak, and unable to prolong
his walk to any greater distance.

CHAPTER XXI.--Thomas M'Mahon is forced to determine on Emigration.

Gerald Cavanaugh felt himself secretly relieved by the discharge of his
message to M'Mahon.

"It is good," thought he, "to have that affair settled, an' all
expectation of her marriage with him knocked up. I'll be bound a little
time will cool the foolish girl, and put Edward Burke in the way of
succeeding. As for Hycy, I see clearly that whoever is to succeed, he's
not the man--an' the more the pity, for the sorra one of them all so
much the gentleman, nor will live in sich style."

The gloom which lay upon the heart of Kathleen Cavanagh was neither
moody nor captious, but on the contrary remarkable for a spirit of
extreme gentleness and placidity. From the moment she had come to the
resolution of discarding M'Mahon, she was observed to become more
silent than she had ever been, but at the same time her deportment was
characterized by a tenderness towards the other members of the family
that was sorrowful and affecting to the last degree. Her sister Hanna's
sympathy was deep and full of sorrow. None of them, however, knew her
force of character, nor the inroads which, under guise of this placid
calm, strong grief was secretly making on her health and spirits. The
paleness, for instance, which settled on her cheek