"Oh! as to his being a Protestant, we won't mind that now. Well then, Mrs. McKeon, under these circumstances, what could Feemy do better than encourage this Captain?"
"I never blamed her for encouraging him; only she should not have gone the length she has, unless he downright proposed for her."
"But he has downright proposed for her."
"No! Father John," said Louey.
"Has he though, really!" exclaimed Lyddy.
"Then, why, in the name of the blessed Virgin, don't he marry her?" said the mother.
"That's poor Feemy's difficulty, you see, Mrs. McKeon. Now if any man you approved of were to make off with Miss Lyddy's heart—and I'm sure she'll never give it to any one you don't approve of—why of course he'd naturally come to you or her father, and the matter would be settled; but Feemy has no mother for him to go to, and her father, you know, can't mind such things now."
"But she has a brother; in short, if he meant to marry her, it would soon be done. Where there's a will, there's a way."
"But that's where it is; you know young men, and what they are, a deal better than I do; and you can understand that a young man may propose to a girl, and be accepted, and afterwards shilly shally about it, and perhaps at last change his mind altogether—merely because the girl's friends don't take care that the affair is regularly and properly carried on; now isn't that so, Mrs. McKeon?"
"Indeed, Father John, it's all true."