Here it was again! Patsey was her son, a boy of nineteen, who by the aid of an uncle who had fortunately escaped from the clutches of the British government, years ago, had been taken to America. He had found employment and had been regularly sending money to his mother to pay the rent of the miserable cabin she existed in. She had not heard from him for six weeks and had been worried about him. This letter was from his room-mate, and it conveyed the intelligence that he had been sick for six weeks, and that his sickness had terminated in death. Poor Patsey was dead and buried. What kind of an infamy is it that will not permit a mother to mourn the death of her first born without connecting it with "rint?" This one could not, for as dearly as she loved Patsey, there were six others just as dear to her, to whom Patsey was the life. It was Patsey in America who shielded the others from starvation. What kind of an infernalism is it that grips the hearts of women, that lays its icy iron finger upon the tenderest chords in a mother's heart? "Patsey's dead--who'll pay the rint!" Death and rent! A most proper combination. Rent _is_ death. Tibbitts is here, but I am sorry to say that that not altogether exemplary young man is paying a great deal more attention to Irish whisky than he is to Irish troubles. He came in very much intoxicated last night at twelve o'clock, and I reproved him for the condition he was in. "It's my (hic) mother that did it," he replied. "My mother in Oshkosh." "Your mother, you--well, that is too much!" "True, 'shoor you. She wrote me a long letter, which I got this mornin'. (Hic.) R'ligious letter, and a mighty (hic) good one. (Hic.) Great woman, mother. She said man in state of nature (hic) was wicked as sparks fly upward. Struck me (hic) as true. What was duty? To get out of state of nature. (Hic.) Man full of Irish whisky is not in state (hic) nature--entirely unnatural. Ergo--man drunk not bein' in state of nature, not sinner. See? Logic. Have too much regard (hic) for mother's feelings to be in state of nature. Never will be, so long as the old (hic) man comes down." I don't think he ever will be. Clearly, it is my duty to have the young man sent home as soon as possible. While I am informed that Irish whisky is less destructive of the tissues than English gin or British brandy, or the vile compound they call ale, it will intoxicate, and I do not accept Mr. Tibbitt's logic. His getting outside of whisky does not enable him to get outside of himself. [Illustration: _Conemara Women._] CHAPTER XXVIII. SOME LITTLE HISTORY. It is very difficult to make an American understand the Irish question, for the simple reason we have nothing parallel to it in our own country; for which every American should thank his Heavenly Father, who cast his lines in such pleasant places.