Dan looked pensive, and rubbed his hands slowly together, tantalised perhaps by the magnificence of the vision; but “herself” shook her head with a proud little smile.

“There’s no knowin’ what we’d have had,” she observed.  “Larry said he’d have axed Father Taylor to choose us the best, an’ I b’lieve his reverence has very good taste.”

“‘Deed an’ he has, ma’am.  But will yez be goin’ off wid yourselves to America out o’ this?”

“Aye will we,” responded Mrs. Brophy, with spirit.  “Bedad, if Dan an’ me is ever to see the world it’s time we started.”

“It’s very far off,” said poor old Dan nervously; “it’s a terrible long way to be goin’, alanna.  If it wasn’t for Larry expectin’ us over beyant—­”

“What would ye do, then?” interrupted his energetic little wife fiercely.  “Stop at home, perishin’ wid the cold an’ hunger, an’ the rain droppin’ down on us while we’re atin’ our bit o’ dinner; me that bad wid the rheumatiz I can hardly move hand or fut, an’ yourself taken wid them wakenesses so that it’s all ye can do to lift the potaties.”

“Dear knows, it’s himself that ought to leppin’ mad wid j’y,” cried one of the neighbours.  “To get such a chance!  Isn’t it in the greatest good luck ye are, Dan, to be goin’ off to that beautiful place, where ye’ll be livin’ in the heighth o’ comfort an’ need never do another hand’s turn for yourselves?  Troth, I wish it was me that had the offer of it.”

Many murmurs of approval greeted this sally; every one being convinced that Dan was indeed in luck’s way, while his wife wrathfully opined that he didn’t know when he was well off.

Poor old Dan hastened to assure them that he was “over-j’yed.”

“I suppose,” he added, looking round deprecatingly, “they’ll tell me down at the railway station the way we’ll have to go; or maybe Father Taylor ‘ud know.  The say is miles an’ miles away—­I question if they’d give us a ticket for the say down beyant at Clonkeen.”

“Sure, yez’ll have to go to Dublin first,” interposed the well-informed person who had before volunteered useful explanations.

“Dublin!” said Dan, sitting down on the edge of his favourite little “creepy” stool.  “Well, well, to think o’ that!  I never thought to be goin’ to Dublin, an’ I suppose America is twicet as far.”

“Aye, an’ ten times as far,” cried Peggy Murphy.

Dan looked appealingly round as though seeking contradiction, but could not summon up enough courage to speak.  He sat still, rubbing his hands, and smiling a rather vacant smile; and by-and-by, having exhausted their queries and conjectures, the visitors left the cabin, and the old couple were alone.

They stared at each other for a moment or two in silence, Mary Brophy fingering the letter which she could not read.

“That’s grand news?” she remarked presently, with a querulous interrogative note in her voice.

“Grand entirely,” repeated her husband submissively, rubbing the patched knees of his corduroy trousers for a change.