CHAPTER XXI.--Thomas M'Mahon is forced to determine on Emigration.
Gerald Cavanaugh felt himself secretly relieved by the discharge of his
message to M'Mahon.
"It is good," thought he, "to have that affair settled, an' all
expectation of her marriage with him knocked up. I'll be bound a little
time will cool the foolish girl, and put Edward Burke in the way of
succeeding. As for Hycy, I see clearly that whoever is to succeed, he's
not the man--an' the more the pity, for the sorra one of them all so
much the gentleman, nor will live in sich style."
The gloom which lay upon the heart of Kathleen Cavanagh was neither
moody nor captious, but on the contrary remarkable for a spirit of
extreme gentleness and placidity. From the moment she had come to the
resolution of discarding M'Mahon, she was observed to become more
silent than she had ever been, but at the same time her deportment was
characterized by a tenderness towards the other members of the family
that was sorrowful and affecting to the last degree. Her sister Hanna's
sympathy was deep and full of sorrow. None of them, however, knew her
force of character, nor the inroads which, under guise of this placid
calm, strong grief was secretly making on her health and spirits. The
paleness, for instance, which settled on her cheeks, when the news
of her lover's apostacy, as it was called, and as she considered it,
reached her, never for one moment left it afterwards, and she resembled
some exquisitely chiselled statue moving by machinery, more than
anything else to which we can compare her.
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