"I'm in earnest now, Father Marty. What shall we do if our darling Kate thinks of this young man more than is good for her?" Father Marty raised his hat and began to scratch his head. "If you like to look at the fair face of a handsome lad--"

"I do thin, Misthress O'Hara."

"Must not she like it also?"

"I'll go bail she likes it," said the priest.

"And what will come next?"

"I'll tell you what it is, Misthress O'Hara. Would you want to keep her from even seeing a man at all?"

"God forbid."

"It's not the way to make them happy, nor yet safe. If it's to be that way wid her, she'd better be a nun all out; and I'd be far from proposing that to your Kate."

"She is hardly fit for so holy a life."

"And why should she? I niver like seeing too many of 'em going that way, and them that are prittiest are the last I'd send there. But if not a nun, it stands to reason she must take chance with the rest of 'em. She's been too much shut up already. Let her keep her heart till he asks her for it; but if he does ask her, why shouldn't she be his wife? How many of them young officers take Irish wives home with 'em every year. Only for them, our beauties wouldn't have a chance."

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