What a hubbub the arrival of “an America letter” causes in Ireland over the whole district blessed by its visit! It is quite a public concern--a joint property--being in fact always regarded as a general communication from all the neighbours abroad to all the neighbours at home, and its perusal a matter of intense and agonising interest to all who have a relative even in the degree of thirty-first cousin among the emigrants. Let us take for instance the letter in question, for the cavalcade has returned, and not only is the widow’s cabin full, but the very bawn before her door is crowded, and the door itself completely blocked up with an array of heads, poking forward in the vain attempt to catch a tone of the schoolmaster’s voice as he publishes the contents of the desired epistle, and absolutely smothering it by the uproar of their squabbles, as they endeavour each to obtain a better place. “Tare-an’-eunties, Tom Bryan, fwhat are you pushing me away for, an’ me wanting to hear fwhat’s become of my own first cousin!” “Arrah, don’t be talkin’, man--fwhy wouldn’t I thry to get in, an’ half the letther about my sisther-in-law?” “Oh, boys, boys, agra, does any of yees hear e’er a word about my poor Paddy?” The last speaker is a woman, poor Biddy Casey: for the last three years not a letter came from America that she could hear of, whether far or near, but she attended to hear it read, in the hope of getting some information about her husband, who, driven away by bad times and an injudicious agent, had made a last exertion to emigrate, and earn something for his family. Regularly every market-day from that event she called at the post-office, at first with the confident tone of assured expectation, to inquire for an America letter for one Biddy Casey; then when her heart began to sicken with apprehensions arising from the oft-repeated negative, her question was, “You haven’t e’er a letter for me to-day, ma’am?” and then when she could no longer trust herself to ask, she merely presented her well-known face at the window, and received the usual answer in heartbroken silence, now and then broken by the joyless ejaculation, “God in heaven help me!” But from that time to this not a syllable has she been able to learn of his fate, or even of his existence. Now, however, her labours and anxieties are to have an end--but what an end! This letter at last affords her the information that, tempted by the delusive promise of higher wages, her husband was induced to set out for the unwholesome south, and long since has found a grave among the deadly swamps of New Orleans. But like every thing else in life, Dinny M’Daniel’s letter is a chequered matter. See, here comes a lusty, red-cheeked damsel, elbowing her way out of the cabin, her eyes bursting out of her head with joy. “Well, Peggy--well--well!” is echoed on all sides as they crowd around her; “any news from Bid?--though, troth, we needn’t ax you.”