At two years I was sent away to England with my English mother, who was but a hand-fast bride to the O'Neill." "And what may that be ?" I asked.
"'Tis a custom with us," said she, "for the chiefs to take wives who are theirs only so long as a better does not present herself.

My mother, Alice Syngleton, the daughter of my father's English ally and preserver, Captain Syngleton, was thus wedded, and when I was two years old--so my old nurse tells me--he married the great Lady Cantire of the Isles.
Wherefore my mother was sent home to England with me, and there we lived till she died three years ago; since when I have pined in a convent, and am now, in obedience to my father's summons, on my way to my unknown home.

My father, being, as I understand, allied to the English, who have dispossessed the McDonnells, I was to come over under the escort of an English officer of Sir William Carleton's choosing, who was my mother's kinsman.

You know what peril that brought me to, and how, thanks to you, I am now making a safer journey, and a happier.
Humphrey," said she, "till I met you and Sir Ludar, I had thought all men base; 'twas the one lesson they taught us at the convent.

I have unlearned the lesson since." "Pray Heaven you never have to relearn it," said I, groaning inwardly to think how near I had been to giving her cause.
Thus we talked that morning.