“That's a lie, you sthrap; you know right well where it is.”
“No,” replied her father, “she does not, when she says she doesn't. Did you ever know her to tell a lie?”
“Ay—did I—fifty.”
The Prophet rushed at her again, and again did Sarah interpose.
“You vile ould tarmagint,” he exclaimed, “you're statin' what you feel to be false when you say so; right well you know that neither you nor I, nor any one else, ever heard a lie from her lips, an' yet you have the brass to say to the contrary.”
“Father,” said Sarah, “there's but one coorse for you; as for me, my mind's made up—in this house I don't stay if she does.”
“If you'd think of what I spoke to you about,” he replied, “all would soon be right wid us; but then you're so unraisonable, an' full of foolish notions, that it's hard for me to know what to do, especially as I wish to do all for the best.”
“Well,” rejoined Sarah, “I'll spake to you again, about it; at this time I'm disturbed and unaisy in my mind; I'm unhappy—unhappy—an' I hardly knows on what hand to turn. I'm afeared I was born for a hard fate, an' that the day of my doom isn't far from me. All, father, is dark before me—my heart is, indeed, low an' full of sorrow; an' sometimes I could a'most tear any one that 'ud contradict me. Any way I'm unhappy.”
As she uttered the last words, her father, considerably surprised at the melancholy tenor of her language, looked at her, and perceived that, whilst she spoke, her large black eyes were full of distress, and swam in tears.
“Don't be a fool, Sarah,” said he, “it's not a thrifle should make any one cry in sich a world as this. If Charley Hanlon and you has quarrelled, it was only the case with thousands before you. If he won't marry you, maybe as good or better will; for sure, as the ould proverb says, there's as good fish in the say as ever was catched. In the mane time think what I said to you, an' all will be right.”