urchin of
some eight or nine years, look under my right foot for the white hair,
whose charm was such, that by keeping it about me the first female name
I should hear was destined, I believed in my soul, to be that of my
future wife.* Sweet was the song of the thrush, and mellow the whistle
of the blackbird, as they rose in the stillness of evening over the
"hirken shaws" and green dells of this secluded spot of rural beauty.
Far, too, could the rich voice of Owen M'Carthy be heard along the hills
and meadows, as, with a little chubby urchin at his knee, and another in
his arms, he sat on a bench beside his own door, singing the "Trouglia".
in his native Irish; whilst Kathleen his wife, with her two maids, each
crooning a low song, sat before the door milking the cows, whose sweet
breath mingled its perfume with the warm breeze of evening.

Owen M'Carthy was descended from a long-line of honest ancestors,
whose names had never, within the memory of man, been tarnished by
the commission of a mean or disreputable action. They were always a
kind-hearted family, but stern and proud in the common intercourse of
life. They believed; themselves to be, and probably were, a branch of
the MacCarthy More stock; and, although only the possessors of a small
farm, it was singular to observe the effect which this conviction
produced upon their bearing and manners. To it might, perhaps,
be attributed the high and stoical integrity for which they were
remarkable. This severity, however, was no proof that they wanted
feeling, or were insensible to the misery and sorrows of others: in
all the little cares and perplexities that chequered the peaceful
neighborhood in which they lived, they were ever the first to console,
or, if necessary, to support a distressed neighbor with the means which
God had placed in their possession; for, being industrious, they were
seldom poor. Their words were few, but sincere, and generally promised
less than the honest hearts that dictated them intended to perform.
There is in some persons a hereditary feeling of just principle, the
result neither of education nor of a clear moral sense, but rather a
kind of instinctive honesty which descends, like a constitutional
bias, from father to son, pervading every member of the family. It is
difficult to define this, or to assign its due position in the scale
of human virtues. It exists in the midst of the grossest ignorance, and
influences the character in the abse