“Oh, grand news!” is the delighted answer. “Bid has a wonderful fine place for herself an’ another for me, an’ my passage is ped, an’ I’m to be ready in five weeks, an’, widdy! widdy! I dunna what to do with myself.” “And, Peggy agra, was there any thing about our Mick?”--“or our Sally, Peggy?”--“or Johnny Golloher, asthore?” are the questions with which she is inundated. “Oh, I dunna, I dunna--I couldn’t listen with the joy, I tell ye.” “But, Peggy alanna, what will Tom Feeny think of all this? and what is to become, pray, of all the vows and promises which, to our own certain knowledge, you made each other coming home from the dance the other night?” Pooh! that difficulty is removed long ago--the very first money she earns in America is to be dispatched to the care of Father Cahill, to pay Tom’s passage over to her. “And will she do such a shameless thing?” some fair reader will probably ask. Ay will she; and think herself right well off, moreover, to have the shame to bear; for though Peggy can dig her ridge of potatoes beside the best man in the parish, her heart is soft and leal like nine hundred and ninety-nine out of the thousand of her countrywomen. Another happy face--see, here comes old Malachi Tighe, clasping his hands, and looking up to heaven in silent thankfulness, for his “bouchal bawn, the glory of his heart,” is to be home with him before harvest, with as much money as would buy the bit o’ land out and out, and his daughter-in-law is fainting with gladness, and his grandchildren screaming with delight, and the neighbours wish him joy with all the earnestness of sympathy, for Johnny Tighe has been a favourite. Woe, woe, woe!--Mick Finnegan has sent a message of fond encouragement to his sweetheart, which she never must hear, for typhus, the scourge of Ireland, has made her his victim, and the daisies have already rooted on her grave, and are blooming there as fresh and fair as she used to be herself; and the wounds of her kindred are opened anew, and the death-wail is raised again, as wild and vehement as if she died but yesterday, although six weeks have passed since they bore her to Saint John’s. What comes next?--“Johnny Golloher has got married to a Munster girl with a stocking full of money;” and Nanny Mulry laughs at the news until you’d think her sides ought to ache, and won’t acknowledge that she cares one pin about it--on the contrary, wishes him the best of good luck, and hopes he may never be made a world’s wonder of; all which proceedings are viewed by the initiated as so many proofs positive of her intention, on the first convenient opportunity, to break her heart for the defaulting Mr Golloher.