For this reason alone, Meehaul Neil was bitterly opposed to the most distant notion of a marriage between his sister and young Lamh Laudher.

There were other motives also which weighed, with nearly equal force, in the consideration of this subject.
His sister Ellen was by far the most beautiful girl of her station in the whole country,--and many offers, highly advantageous, and far above what she otherwise could have expected, had been made to her.

On the other hand, Lamh Laudher Oge was poor, and by no means qualified in point of worldly circumstances to propose for her, even were hereditary enmity out of the question.

All things considered, the brother and friends of Ellen would rather have seen her laid in her grave, than allied to a comparatively poor young man, and their bitterest enemy.
Meehaul had but little doubt as to the truth of what Nell M'Collum told him.

There was a saucy and malignant confidence in her manner, which, although it impressed him with a sense of her earnestness, left, nevertheless, an indefinite feeling of dislike against her on his mind.
He knew that her motive for disclosure was not one of kindness or regard for him or for his family.