At the time of which we write, the penal laws were in operation against the Roman Catholic population of the country, and her father, a good-hearted man by nature, was wordy and violent by prejudice, and yet secretly kind and friendly to many of that unhappy creed, though by no means to all.
It was well known, however, that in every thing that was generous and good in his character, or in the discharge of his public duties as a magistrate, he was chiefly influenced by the benevolent and liberal principles of his daughter, who was a general advocate for the oppressed, and to whom, moreover, he could deny nothing.

This accounted for her popularity, as it does for the extraordinary veneration and affection with which her name and misfortunes are mentioned down to the present day.

The worst point in her father's character was that he never could be prevailed on to forgive an injury, or, at least, any act that he conceived to be such, a weakness or a vice which was the means of all his angelic and lovely daughter's calamities.
Reilly, though full of fervor and enthusiasm, was yet by no means deficient in strong sense.

On his way home he began to ask himself in what this overwhelming passion for _Cooleen Bawn_ must end.

His religion, he was well aware, placed an impassable gulf between them.
Was it then generous or honorable in him to abuse the confidence and hospitality of her father by engaging the affections of a daughter, on whose welfare his whole happiness was placed, and to whom, moreover, he could not, without committing an act of apostasy that he abhorred, ever be united as a husband?
Reason and prudence, moreover, suggested to him the danger of his position, as well as the ungenerous nature of his conduct to the grateful and trusting father.