The grief of the two girls was at once hushed; and, after a slight pause, Mrs.
M'Mahon called Kathleen to her.
"Dear Kathleen," she said, "I did hope to see the day when you'd be one of my own family, but it's not the will of God, it appears, that I should; however, may His will be done! I hope still that day will come, an' that your friends won't have any longer an objection to your marriage wid Bryan.

I am his mother, an' no one has a better right to know his heart an' his temper, an' I can say, upon my dyin' bed, that a better heart an' a better temper never was in man.

I believe, Kathleen, it was never known that a good son ever made a bad husband.

However, if it's God's will to bring you together, He will, and if it isn't, you must only bear it patiently." Bryan was silent, but his eye, from time to time, turned with a long glance of love and sorrow upon Kathleen, whose complexion became pale and red by turns.

At length Dora, after her mother had concluded, went over to Kathleen, and putting her arms around her neck, exclaimed, "Oh! mother dear, something tells me that Kathleen will be my sisther yet, an' if you'd ask her to promise--" Kathleen looked down upon the beautiful and expressive features of the affectionate girl, and gently raising her hand she placed it upon Dora's lips, in order to prevent the completion of the sentence.