leaf, an' the leaf was open to me. Grandeur an' wealth is before
her, for her beauty an' her! goodness will bring it all about, an' so I
read it."

"An' what about the husband himself?" asked the mother, whose affections
caused! her to feel a strong interest in anything that might concern
the future interest of her daughter; "can you tell us nothing about his
appearance, that we might give a guess at him?"

"No," replied M'Gowan, for such was the prophet's name, "not to you; to
none but herself can I give the marks an' tokens that will enable her
to know the man that is to be her husband when she sees him; and to
herself, in the mornin', I will, before I go that is if she'll allow
me--for what is written in the dark book ought to be read and expounded.
Her beauty an' her goodness will do it all!"

The man's words were uttered m a voice so replete with those soft and
insinuating tones that so powerfully operate upon the female heart; they
breathed, too such an earnest spirit of good will, joined to an evident
admiration of the beauty and goodness he alluded to, that the innocent
girl, not-withstanding her previous aversion, felt something like
gratification at what he said, not on account ol the prospects held out
to her, but because of the singular charm and affectionate spirit
which breathed in his voice; or, might it not have been that delicate
influence of successful flattery which so gently pervades the heart of
woman, and soothes that vanity which unconsciously lurks in the very
purest and most innocent of the sex? So far from being flattered by
his predictions, she experienced a strong sensation of disappointment,
because she knew where her affections at that moment rested, and felt
persuaded that if she were destined to enjoy the grandeur shadowed out
for her, it never could be with him whom she then loved. Notwithstanding
all this, she felt her repugnance against the prophet strongly
counterbalanced by the strange influence he began to exercise over her;
and with this impression she and they passed to the kitchen, where in a
few minutes she was engaged in preparing food for him, with a degree of
good feeling that surprised herself.

There is scarcely anything so painful to hearts naturally generous, like
those of the Sullivans, as the contest between the shame and exposure of
the conscious poverty on the one hand, and the anxiety to indulge in a
hospitable spirit on the other. Nobody unacquainted with Irelan