“Then the sorra ring ever I'll put on you while there's, breath in my body.”
“Why, didn't she give him three months to clear himself?”
“Did she, indeed? And do you think that any young man of spirit would pay attention to such a stilted pride as that? It was her business to send for him face to face, and to say—'Bryan M'Mahon, I never knew you or one of your family to tell a lie or do a dishonest or disgraceful act'—and here as she spoke the tears of that ancient integrity and hereditary pride which are more precious relics in a family than the costliest jewels that ever sparkled in the sun, sprang from her eyes—'and now, Bryan M'Mahon, I ax no man's word but your own—I ax no other evidence but your own—I put it to your conscience—to that honor that has never yet been tarnished by any of your family, I say I put it to yourself, here face to face with the girl that loves you—and answer me as you are in the presence of God—did you do what they charge you with? Did you do wrong knowingly and deliberately, and against your own conscience?”
The animated sparkle of her face was so delightful and fascinating that her lover attempted to press her to his bosom; but she would not suffer it.
“Behave now,” she said firmly; “sorra bit—no,” she proceeded; “and whilst all the world was against him, runnin' him down and blackenin' him—was she ever the girl to stand up behind his back and defend him like a—hem—defend him, I say, as a girl that loved him ought, and a generous-girl would?”
“But how could she when she believed, him to be wrong?”
“Why did she believe him to be wrong upon mere hearsay? and granting that he was wrong! do you think now if you had done what they say he did (and they lie that say it), an' that I heard the world down on you for your first slip, do you think, I say, that I'd not defend you out of clane contrariness,—and to vex them—ay, would I.”
“I know, darlin', that you'd do everything that's generous an' right; but settin' that affair aside, my dear Dora, what are you and I to do?”
“I don't know what we're to do,” she replied; “it's useless for you to ax me from my father now; for he wouldn't give me to you,—sorra bit.”
“But you'll give me yourself, Dora, darling.”