was most devoted to him, "but Dinny might yet be a primate?" And as she
spoke, the tear of affection, pride, and enthusiasm glistened in her
eye. Denis, therefore, had been much, even in his youth, to their simple
hearts, and far more to their hopes and expectations, than he was in all
the pride of his petty polemics; but when he, before whose merits, both
real and imaginary, every heart among them bowed as before the shrine of
a tutelar saint, turned round, ere the destined eminence he aimed at was
half attained, and laid upon their fervent affection the icy chain of
pride and worldly etiquette--the act was felt keenly and unexpectedly as
the acute spasm of some sudden malady. The father and mother, however,
both, defended him with great warmth; and by placing his motives in that
point of view which agreed best with their children's prejudices, they
eventually succeeded in reconciling his brothers and sisters in some
degree to the necessity of adopting the phraseology he proposed--that
they might treat him with suitable respect in the eye of the world.

"It's proud of him we ought to be," said his father, "and delighted that
he has sich a risin' spirit; an' sure the more respect is paid to him
the greater credit he will be to ourselves."

"But, sure he has no right," said his eldest brother, "to be settin' up
for a gentleman till he's priested. I'm willin' enough to sir him, only
that it cuts me more than I'll say, to think that I must be callin' the
boy that I'd spill the dhrop of my blood for, afther I the manner of a
sthranger; and besides," he added, "I'm not clear but the neighbors
will be passin' remarks upon us, as they did when you and he used to be
arguin'."

"I'd like to see them that 'ud turn it into a joke," said his father;
"I would let them know that Dinis O'Shaughnessy's dog is neither to be