“N-no, I don’t mind. I walk around the city. I love seeing people from all over the world mixing together. You’d never see the likes of it in Donegal.”

“I suppose not. I take it you find New York exciting?”

“Yes,” I said, “but—”

“But what?”

“Today I went to Hell’s Kitchen. I could hardly believe the conditions I saw. I’d heard of such slums in Dublin, but I never expected to see such a thing here.”

After I spoke, I realized my nervousness had disappeared.

His face clouded. “So much for New York being paved with gold. I agree with you, Miss Sweeney, it is an awful thing to see, but I doubt that much will change. Even the prosperous Irishmen in this city turn a blind eye to their plight.” His lips tightened in a thin line.

Lily watched him intently as he spoke. She put her small hand in his, as if to comfort him.

“I should go,” I said. “Good night, Mr. O’Hanlon. Good night, Lily.”

As I turned to leave, he rose and came toward me. He took my hands in his and looked into my eyes, his face inches from mine. For a wild moment I thought he was about to kiss me.

“Miss Sweeney, I am moved by your compassion for the suffering of your countrymen.”

He backed away from me and turned toward Lily.

* * *

Unlike Aidan O’Hanlon, Mrs. Donahue was horrified when I told her where I had been and what I had seen.

“Ye’ve no business going all them places on your own,” she said. “Who knows what kind of diseases ye could catch there? Ye need to stick with your own kind. There’re plenty of respectable young Irish lads and lassies about, dying for one another’s company. There’s Irish priests do run dances for them on Friday or Saturday nights at some of the churches nearby, or over in Brooklyn. Kathleen does go to them. I’ll tell her to take you with her next time she goes.”

I wanted to say to Mrs. Donahue that if I wanted to mix with my own kind, I would have stayed in Donegal. But I knew she meant well, and I agreed to go with Kathleen next time she went.

The following Saturday evening we left the O’Hanlon house and boarded a subway train to Brooklyn. I had never seen the likes of a train like this, that ran above and below the ground. When we were in a tunnel, Kathleen said that we were under the East River. I nearly died of fright, remembering the frigid waters beneath the Titanic. I turned to Kathleen.

“Are you not destroyed with fear? What if the river swallows us up, the way the sea swallowed the Titanic?”

Kathleen shrugged. “Don’t be talking so loud,” she said. “People will think we’re greenhorns.”

I blushed to the tips of my ears.