“Dora,” replied the other, his fine countenance overshadowed with, deep emotion as he spoke, “you cannot love these ould hills, as you cull them, nor these beautiful glens, nor the mountain rivers better than I do. It will go to my heart to leave them; but leave them I will--ay, and when I go, you know that I will leave behind me one that's dearer ten thousand times than them all. Kathleen's message has left me a heavy and sorrowful heart.” “I pity her now,” replied the kind-hearted girl; “but, still, Bryan, she sent you a harsh message. Ay, I pity her, for did you observe how the father looked when he said that she bid him tell you her happiness was gone, and her heart broken; still, she ought to have seen yourself and heard your defence.” “I can neither blame her, nor will; neither can I properly justify my vote, I grant; it was surely very wrong or she wouldn't feel it as she does. Indeed. I think I oughtn't to have voted at all.” “I differ with you there, Bryan,” replied 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.”