There was one young man, braver or more persevering than most of Kathleen's untitled admirers, who would not be frowned off by her ambitious parents;--perhaps because he was encouraged by the kind smiles of the beautiful girl herself. This was a young tradesman, named Barry O'Donoghue--a fine, manly fellow, industrious, intelligent, and though not rich, in better circumstances than most young men of the parish. But when "bold Barry O'Donoghue," as he was called, proposed to Michael More for the hand of his daughter, he received as stern and scornful a "No, young man," as any who had been before him. Barry had a proud as well as a loving heart, and felt the slight and disappointment so keenly that he left his home at once, and sailed for Australia, to seek his fortune in that rich, but then almost unknown land. People laughed, and said that Mickey and Biddy More were keeping their daughter for "_the_ O'Donoghue"--expecting him to come for her, some May-day morning, in grand style, riding over the waves on his silver-shining steed, to carry her off to his palace under the lake. But when it was seen how poor Kathleen took Barry's going to heart, few were so unfeeling as to laugh. She never had been as merry as most young girls, and now she grew sad and silent and very weary-looking. She did not complain, but her eyes seemed heavy with the tears she would not shed, and the roses went fading and fading out of her cheeks, till her father became alarmed, and would bid her eat more, and spin less--to get up early in the morning and drink new milk, "with a drop of mountain-dew in it." ("Mountain-dew," I must tell you, is an Irish name for whisky.) "Ah darling," her mother would say, "if you don't howld on to your beauty, what'll his lordship say, when he comes after you? Sure, he'll consider himself imposed upon." "But mother, dear," Kathleen would reply, "I don't want any lord--I'll just stay with father and you, always as I am." "Hush now, you simple child! It's just flying in the face of Providince, you are--your fortune has all been foretowld this many a year, and you've only to submit to it--though you don't desarve it." Well, one May-day morning, when Barry O'Donoghue had been gone somewhat over a year, Kathleen More went out as usual, to take her early walk; but did not come back again. All day long they searched, far and near, but without obtaining any trace or tidings of her; but just at night, a note was found at the door of Michael's cottage, which ran thus:-- "I have taken away your daughter, and married her, before a priest. Be easy about her. She is happy, and sends her dutiful respects. _The O'Donoghue_." "Ochone!" cried Bridget More, "the Phantom Prince has come and gone off wid our darling Kathleen. I always towld you that trouble would come of them early walks;--and how do you feel, Mickey More, to have gone and made yourself father-in-law to a merman--a wicked water-wizard? Answer me that!"