ey grasped her arms and
embraced them, till at last, those who were more daring, reached her
forehead and her face, and poor old Aunt Letty, who in her emotion
could not now utter a syllable, was almost pulled to pieces among
them.

Mary and Emmeline had altogether surrendered themselves, and were
the centres of clusters of children who hung upon them. And the sobs
now were no longer low and tearful, but they had grown into long,
protracted groanings, and loud wailings, and clapping of hands, and
tearings of the hair. O, my reader, have you ever seen a railway
train taking its departure from an Irish station, with a freight
of Irish emigrants? if so, you know how the hair is torn, and how
the hands are clapped, and how the low moanings gradually swell
into notes of loud lamentation. It means nothing, I have heard men
say,--men and women too. But such men and women are wrong. It means
much; it means this: that those who are separated, not only love each
other, but are anxious to tell each other that they so love. We have
all heard of demonstrative people. A demonstrative person, I take
it, is he who is desirous of speaking out what is in his heart. For
myself I am inclined to think that such speaking out has its good
ends. "The faculty of silence! is it not of all things the most
beautiful?" That is the doctrine preached by a great latter-day
philosopher; for myself, I think that the faculty of speech is
much more beautiful--of speech if it be made but by howlings, and
wailings, and loud clappings of the hand. What is in a man, let it
come out and be known to those around him; if it be bad it will find
correction; if it be good it will spread and be beneficent.

And then one woman made herself audible over the sobs of the crowding
children; she was a gaunt, high-boned woman, but she would have been
comely, if not handsome, had not the famine come upon her. She held a
baby in her arms, and another little toddling thing had been hanging
on her dress till Emmeline had seen it, and plucked it away; and it
was now sitting in her lap quite composed, and sucking a piece of
cake that had been given to it. "An' it's a bad day for us all," said
the woman, beginning in a low voice, which became louder and louder
as she went on; "it's a bad day for us all that takes away from us
the only rale friends that we iver had, and the back of my hand to
them that have come in the way, bringin' sorrow, an' desolation, an'
misery on gentlef