“I suppose you all wonder to see me here at this hour; or, indeed, to see me here at all.” “I hope, Ellen,” said-her father, “that nothing unpleasant has happened to her.” “May the Lord forbid,” said her mother, “and may the Lord take the darlin' creature out of all her troubles. But has there, Ellen--has anything happened to her?” “Nothing more than usual,” replied their daughter, “barring that I have been sent away from her--I am no longer her own maid now.” “_Chierna_!” exclaimed her mother; “and what is that for, _alanna_?” “Well, indeed, mother, I can't exactly say,” replied Ellen, “but I suppose it is because they knew I loved her too much to be a spy upon her. I have raison, however, to suspect that the villain is at the bottom of it, and that the girl who came in my place will act more like a jailer than a maid to her. Of course they're all afraid that she'll run away with Reilly.” “And do you think she will, Ellen?” asked her father. “Don't ask me any such questions,” she replied. “It's no matter what I think--and, besides, it's not my business to mention my thoughts to any one--but one thing I know, it'll go hard if she ever leaves her father, who, I really think, would break his heart if she did.” “Oh!” observed the father, with a smile, “divil a one o' you girls, Ellen, ever thinks much of father or mother when you have made up your minds to run away wid your _buchaleens_--sorra a taste.” “_Arra_, Brian, will you have sinse,” said his wife; “why wouldn't they think o' them?” “Did you do it?” he asked, winking at the rest, “when you took a brave start wid myself across Crockaniska, one summer Sunday night, long ago. Be me sowl, you proved youself as supple as a two-year-old--cleared, drain and ditch like a bird--and had me, when we reached my uncle's, that the ayes wor startin' out o' my head.” “Bad scran to him, the ould slingpoker! Do you hear him,” she exclaimed, laughing--“never mind him, children!--troth, he went at sich a snail's pace that one 'ud think it was to confession he was goin', and that he did nothing but think of his sins as he went along.” “That was bekaise I knew that I had the penance before me,” he replied, laughing also. “Any how,” replied his wife, “our case was not like their's. We were both Catholics, and knew that we'd have the consent of our friends, besides; we only made a runaway because it was the custom of the counthry, glory be to God!” “Ay, ay,” rejoined her husband; “but, faith, it was you that proved yourself the active girl that night, at any rate. However, I hope the Lord will grant her grace to go, wid him, at all events, for, upon my sowl, it would be a great boast for the Catholics--bekaise we know there is one thing sure, and that is, that the divil a long she'd be wid him till he'd have left her fit to face Europe as a Christian and a Catholic, bekaise every wife ought to go wid her husband, barrin' he's a Prodestant.”