I don't like Hycy Burke--I could never like him; and rather than marry him, I declare solemnly to God, I would prefer going into my grave." As she uttered the last words, which she did with an earnestness that startled them, her fine features became illuminated, as it were, with a serene and brilliant solemnity of expression that was strikingly impressive and beautiful.
"Why couldn't you like him, now ?" asked her father; "sure, as your mother says, there's not his aquil for face or figure within many a mile of him ?" "But it's neither face nor figure that I look to most, father." "Well, but think of his wealth, and the style he'll live in, I'll go bail, when he gets married." "That style maybe won't make his wife happy.

No, father, it's neither face, nor figure, nor style that I look to, but truth, pure affection, and upright principle; now, I know that Hycy Burke has neither truth, nor affection, nor principle; an' I wondher, besides, that you could think of my ever marrying a man that has already destroyed the happiness of two innocent girls, an' brought desolation, an' sorrow, an' shame upon two happy families.

Do you think that I will ever become the wife of a profligate?
An' is it you, father, an' still more you, mother, that's a woman, that can urge me to think of joining my fate to that of a man that has neither shame nor principle?
I thought that if you didn't respect decency an' truth, and a regard for what is right and proper, that, at all events, you would respect the feelings of your child that was taught their value." Both parents felt somewhat abashed by the force of the truth and the evident superiority of her character; but in a minute or two her worthy father, from whose dogged obstinacy she inherited the firmness and resolution for which she had ever been remarkable, again returned to the subject.
"If Hycy Burke was wild, Kathleen, so was many a good man before him; an' that's no raison but he may turn out well yet, an' a credit to his name, as I have no doubt he will.

All that he did was only folly an' indiscretion--we can't be too hard or uncharitable upon our fellow-craytures." "No," chimed in her mother, "we can't.

Doesn't all the world know that a reformed rake makes a good husband ?--an' besides, didn't them two huzzies bring it on themselves ?--why didn't they keep from him as they ought?
The fault, in such cases, is never all on one side." Kathleen's brow and face and whole neck became crimson, as her mother, in the worst spirit of a low and degrading ambition, uttered the sentiments we have just written.