“All I can say is,” replied the father, “that the joke has betther bottom than the garran it was made upon.” Edward now arose and left the parlor, evidently annoyed at the empty ribaldry of his brother, and in a few minutes Hycy mounted his horse and rode towards Ballymacan. It is not our intention here to follow Gerald Cavanagh in the account, unconsciously one sided as it was, of the consent which he assured them Kathleen had given, on the night before, to marry their son Edward. It is sufficient to say, that before they separated, the match was absolutely made by the two worthies, and everything arranged, with, the exception of the day of marriage, which they promised to determine on at their next meeting. CHAPTER XXIV.--Thoughts on Our Country and Our Countrymen --Dora and Her Lover. The state of the country, at this period of our narrative, was full of gloom and depression. Spring had now set in, and the numbers of our independent and most industrious countrymen that flocked towards our great seaports were reckoned by many thousands; and this had been the case for many a season previously. That something was wrong, and that something is wrong in the country must, alas! be evident from the myriad's who, whilst they have the means in their hands, are anxious to get out of it as fast as they can. And yet there is not a country in the world, a population so affectionately attached to the soil--to the place of their birth--as the Irish. In fact, the love of their native fields, their green meadows, the dark mountains, and the glorious torrents that gush from them, is a passion of which they have in foreign lands been often known to die. It is called Home Sickness, and we are aware ourselves of more than one or two cases in which individuals, in a comparatively early stage of life, have pined away in secret after their native hills, until the malady becoming known, unfortunately too late, they sought once more the green fields and valleys among which they had spent their youth, just in time to lay down their pale cheeks and rest in their native clay for ever those hearts which absence and separation from the very soil had broken.