purest and most innocent of the sex? So far from being flattered by
his predictions, she experienced a strong sensation of disappointment,
because she knew where her affections at that moment rested, and felt
persuaded that if she were destined to enjoy the grandeur shadowed out
for her, it never could be with him whom she then loved. Notwithstanding
all this, she felt her repugnance against the prophet strongly
counterbalanced by the strange influence he began to exercise over her;
and with this impression she and they passed to the kitchen, where in a
few minutes she was engaged in preparing food for him, with a degree of
good feeling that surprised herself.

There is scarcely anything so painful to hearts naturally generous, like
those of the Sullivans, as the contest between the shame and exposure of
the conscious poverty on the one hand, and the anxiety to indulge in a
hospitable spirit on the other. Nobody unacquainted with Ireland could
properly understand the distress of mind which this conflict almost
uniformly produces. On the present occasion it was deeply felt by
this respectable but declining family, and Mave, the ingenuous and
kind-hearted girl, felt much of her unaccountable horror of this man
removed by its painful exercise. Still her aversion was not wholly
overcome, although much diminished; for, ever as she looked at his
swollen and disfigured face, and thought of the mysterious motions of
the murdered man's coat, she could not avoid turning away her eyes, and
wishing that she had not seen him that evening. The scanty meal was at
length over; a meal on which many a young eye dwelt with those yearning
looks that take their character from the hungry and wolfish spirit which
marks the existence of a "hard year," as it is called in our unfortunate
country, and which, to a benevolent heart, forms such a sorrowful
subject for contemplation. Poor Bridget Sullivan did all in her power to
prevent this evident longing from being observed by M'Gowan, by looking