“I trust, my most amiable mother, that you won't suffer the equability of your temper to be disturbed by anything proceeding from such an antiphlogistic source. Allow me to say, Mr. Burke, that I have higher game in view, and that for the present I must beg respectfully to decline the proposal which you so kindly made, fully sensible as I am of the honor you intended for me. If you will only exercise a little patience, however, perhaps I shall have the pleasure ere long of presenting to you a lady of high accomplishments, amiable manners, and very considerable beauty.” “Not a 'Crazy Jane' bargain, I hope?” “Really, Mr. Burke, you are pleased to be sarcastic; but as for honest Katsey, have the goodness to take her out of your eye as soon as possible, for she only blinds you to your own interest and to mine.” “You wouldn't marry Kathleen, then?” “For the present I say most assuredly not,” replied the son, in the same ironical and polite tone. “Because,” continued his father, with a very grave smile, in which there was, to say truth, a good deal of the grin visible, “as poor Gerald was a good deal anxious about the matther, I said I'd try and make you marry her--_to oblige him_.” Hycy almost, if not altogether, lost his equanimity by the contemptuous sarcasm implied in these words. “Father,” said he, to save trouble, and to prevent you and me both from thrashing the wind in this manner, I think it right to tell you that I have no notion of marrying such a girl as Cavanagh's daughter.” “No,” continued his mother, “nor if you had, I wouldn't suffer it.” “Very well,” said the father; “is that your mind?” “That's my mind, sir.” “Well, now, listen to mine, and maybe, Hycy, I'll taiche you better manners and more respect for your father; suppose I bring your brother home from school,--suppose I breed him up an honest farmer,--and suppose I give him all my property, and lave Mr. Gentleman Hycy to lead a gentleman's life on his own means, the best way he can. There now is something for you to suppose, and so I must go to my men.” He took up his hat as he spoke and went out to the fields, leaving both mother and son in no slight degree startled by an intimation so utterly unexpected, but which they knew enough of him to believe was one not at all unlikely to be acted on by a man who so frequently followed up his own determinations with a spirit amounting almost to obstinacy. “I think, mother,” observed the latter, “we must take in sail a little; 'the gentleman' won't bear the ironical to such an extent, although he is master of it in his own way; in other words, Mr. Burke won't bear to be laughed at.” “Not he,” said his mother, in the tone of one who was half angry at him on that very account, “he'll bear nothing.” “D--n it, to tell that vulgar bumpkin, Cavanagh, I suppose in a state of maudlin drunkenness, that he would make me marry his daughter--to oblige, him!--contempt could go no further; it was making a complete cipher of me.”