make you desart me?"

"But, Susan, my nightingale, perhaps you are not aware that there is
an authority in existence to which father, mother, and all must knuckle
down. That is the church, Susan. Reflect--_dulce decus meum_--that the
power of the church is able to loose and unloose, to tie and untie, to
forgive and to punish, to raise to the highest heaven, or to sink to
the profoundest Tartarus. That power, Susan, thinks proper to claim your
unworthy and enamored swain as one of the brightest Colossuses of
her future glory. The Irish hierarchy is plased to look upon me as a
luminary of almost superhuman brilliancy and coruscation: my talents
she pronounces to be of the first magnitude; my eloquence classical and
overwhelming, and my learning only adorned by that poor insignificant
attribute denominated by philosophers unfathomability!--hem!--hem!"

"Denis," replied the innocent girl, "you sometimes speak that I can
undherstand you; but you oftener spake in a way that I can hardly make
out what you say. If it's a thing that my love for you, or the solemn
promise that passed between us, would stand in your light, or prevint
you from higher things as a priest, I am willing to--to--to give you
up, whatever I may suffer. But you know yourself, that you brought me on
from time to time undher your promise, that nothing would ever lead
you to lave me in sorrow an' disappointment. Still, I say, that--But,
Denis, is it thrue that you could lave me for anything?"

The innocent confidence in his truth expressed by the simplicity of her
last question, staggered the young candidate; that is to say, her words,
her innocence, and her affection sank deeply into his heart.

"Susan," he replied, "to tell the blessed truth, I am fairly dilemma'd.