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“Faix, a fellow on deck was telling me a nate story the day,” said Mike to Biddy Bogan, by way of kindly amusement. “Says he to me, ‘Mike,’ says he, ‘did ye ever hear of wan Pathrick O’Brien that heard some bla’guard tell how in Ameriky you picked up money in the streets?’ ‘No,’ says I. ‘He wint ashore in a place,’ says he, ‘and he walked along and he come to a sign on a wall. Silver Street was on it. “I ‘ont stap here,” says he, “it ain’t wort my while at all, at all. I’ll go on to Gold Street,” says he, but he walked ever since and he ain’t got there yet.'”

Biddy opened her eyes and laughed feebly. Mike looked so bronzed and ruddy and above all so happy, that she took heart. “We’re sound and young, thanks be to God, and we’ll earn an honest living,” said Mike, proudly. “‘T is the childher I’m thinkin’ of all the time, an’ how they’ll get a chance the best of us niver had at home. God bless old Bantry forever in spite of it. An’ there’s a smart rid-headed man that has every bother to me why ‘ont I go with him and keep a tidy bar. He’s been in the same business this four year gone since he come out, and twenty pince in his pocket when he landed, and this year he took a month off and went over to see the ould folks and build ’em a dacint house intirely, and hire a man to farm wid ’em now the old ones is old. He says will I put in my money wid him, an he’ll give me a great start I wouldn’t have in three years else.”

“Did you have the fool’s head on you then and let out to him what manes you had?” whispered Biddy, fiercely and lifting herself to look at him.

“I did then; ‘t was no harm,” answered the unsuspecting Mike.

“‘T was a black-hearted rascal won the truth from you!” and Biddy roused her waning forces and that very afternoon appeared on deck. The red-headed man knew that he had lost the day when he caught her first scornful glance.

“God pity the old folks of him an’ their house,” muttered the sharp-witted wife to Mike, as she looked at the low-lived scheming fellow whom she suspected of treachery.

“He said thim was old clothes he was wearin’ on the sea,” apologized Mike for his friend, looking down somewhat consciously at his own comfortable corduroys. He and Biddy had been well to do on their little farm, and on good terms with their landlord the old squire. Poor old gentleman, it had been a sorrow to him to let the young people go. He was a generous, kindly old man, but he suffered from the evil repute of some shortsighted neighbors. “If I gave up all I had in the world and went to the almshouse myself, they would still damn me for a landlord,” he said, desperately one day. “But I never thought Mike Bogan would throw up his good chances. I suppose some worthless fellow called him stick-in-the-mud and off he must go.”

There was some unhappiness at first for the young people in America. They went about the streets of their chosen town for a day or two, heavy-hearted with disappointment. Their old neighbors were not housed in palaces after all, as the letters home had suggested, and after a few evenings of visiting and giving of messages, and a few days of aimless straying about, Mike and Biddy hired two rooms at a large rent up three flights of stairs, and went to housekeeping. Litte Dan rolled down one flight the first day; no more tumbling on the green turf among the daisies for him, poor baby boy. His father got work at the forge of a carriage shop, having served a few months with a smith at home, and so taking rank almost as a skilled laborer. He was a great favorite speedily, his pay was good, at least it would have been good if he had lived on the old place among the fields, but he and Biddy did not know how to make the most of it here, and Dan had a baby sister presently to keep him company, and then another and another, and there they lived up-stairs in the heat, in the cold, in daisy time and snow time, and Dan was put to school and came home with a knowledge of sums in arithmetic which set his father’s eyes dancing with delight, but with a knowledge besides of foul language and a brutal way of treating his little sisters when nobody was looking on.