And he kissed her yielding lips over and over again. But she did not speak; while the big tears continued to course themselves down her pale but beautiful cheeks.
"Don't--don't, Winny asthore; don't be crying on my account; sure I may say we'll not have to part at all. Mick an' I have it all settled, mavourneen; he's to build you a grand new house where th' ould one stan's, an' I'm to furnish it from top to toe; and Mick an' I will live here, not three hundred yards from the pair of you. Oh, Winny, Winny, but it's I is the happy man this day! There, don't be cryin', I tell you; sure I would not gainsay you for the world;" and he kissed her again. But still she did not speak.
"There, Winny, there; don't be sobbin' an' cryin', I tell you. Why, what's the matther with you, Winny mavrone?"
"Oh, father, father, it never can be!" she exclaimed in broken sobs, and clinging to his neck closer than ever.
"Nonsense, Winny! what's the matther, I say? why can't it be? Of course you did not refuse Tom's offer?"
"I'd, father--indeed I did. I never can care for Tom Murdock; father, I could never be happy with that man. Don't ask me to marry him."
"Is the girl mad? To be sure I will, Winny. There's but the two of you in it an' with Mick's farm an' mine joined,--the leases are all as one as 'free simple,'--you'd be as grand as many ladies an' gentlemen in the county;" and he disengaged himself from her arms, and strode toward the door.
Winny thought he was going; but he had no notion of it at so unsettled a point. She rushed between him and the door.
"Father, don't go!" she cried; "for God's sake don't leave me that way!"
"Winny, it's what I'm greatly surprised at you, so I am. My whole life has been spent in puttin' together a dacent little fortun' for you; I never had one on airth I loved but yourself an' your poor mother--God rest her sowl! I never spoke a cross word to you, Winny jewel, since I followed her to the grave, four days after you were born; an' now, in my old days, when I haven't long to last, you're goin' to break my heart, an' shorten them same. Oh, Winny, Winny, say it's only jokin' you are, an' I'll forgive you, cruel as it was."
"No, father, I'm telling you the real truth; people seldom joke with the tears running down their cheeks; look at them, father. I know all you say is true; and indeed it will break my own heart to oppose you, if you do not yield. But listen here, father dear; sure after all your love and kindness to me for the last eighteen or twenty years, I may say, you won't go now and spoil it all by crossing my happiness without any necessity for it. Tom put all the grandeur and wealth before me himself, that the joining of the two farms and marrying him would bring to me. But it is no use, father; I never liked that man, and I never can. Oh, don't ask me, father asthore; I'm contented and happy as I am."