building of the Royal Dublin Society is in Kildare Street, just
three minutes' from O'Carolan's, and that I have noticed it is for

the promotion of Husbandry and other useful arts and sciences.
Chapter II. Irish itineraries.

'And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,
Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,

And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command,
For the fair hills of holy Ireland.'

--Sir Samuel Ferguson.
Our mutual relations have changed little, notwithstanding that

betrothals and marriages have intervened, and in spite of the fact
that Salemina has grown a year younger; a mysterious feat that she

has accomplished on each anniversary of her birth since the forming
of our alliance.

It is many months since we travelled together in Scotland, but on
entering this very room in Dublin, the other day, we proceeded to

show our several individualities as usual: I going to the window to
see the view, Francesca consulting the placard on the door for hours

of table d'hote, and Salemina walking to the grate and lifting the
ugly little paper screen to say, "There is a fire laid; how nice!"

As the matron I have been promoted to a nominal charge of the
travelling arrangements. Therefore, while the others drive or sail,

read or write, I am buried in Murray's Handbook, or immersed in
maps. When I sleep, my dreams are spotted, starred, notched, and

lined with hieroglyphics, circles, horizontal dashes, long lines,
and black dots, signifying hotels, coach and rail routes, and

tramways.
All this would have been done by Himself with the greatest ease in

the world. In the humbler walks of Irish life the head of the
house, if he is of the proper sort, is called Himself, and it is in

the shadow of this stately title that my Ulysses will appear in this
chronicle.

I am quite sure I do not believe in the inferiority of woman, but I
have a feeling that a man is a trifle superior in practical affairs.

If I am in doubt, and there is no husband, brother, or cousin near,
from whom to seek advice, I instinctively ask the butler or the

coachman rather than a female friend; also, when a female friend has
consulted the Bradshaw in my behalf, I slip out and seek

confirmation from the butcher's boy or the milkman. Himself would
have laid out all our journeyings for us, and we should have gone

placidly along in well-ordered paths. As it is, we are already
pledged to do the most absurd and unusual things, and Ireland bids

fair to be seen in the most topsy-turvy, helter-skelter fashion
imaginable.

Francesca's propositions are especially nonsensical, being
provocative of fruitless discussion, and adding absolutely nothing

to the sum of human intelligence.
"Why not start without any special route in view, and visit the

towns with which we already have familiar associations?" she asked.
"We should have all sorts of experiences by the way, and be free

from the blighting influences of a definite purpose. Who that has
ever travelled fails to call to mind certain images when the names

of cities come up in general conversation? If Bologna, Brussels, or
Lima is mentioned, I think at once of sausages, sprouts, and beans,

and it gives me a feeling of friendly intimacy. I remember
Neufchatel and Cheddar by their cheeses, Dorking and Cochin China by

their hens, Whitby by its jet, or York by its hams, so that I am
never whollyignorant of places and their subtle associations."

"That method appeals strongly to the fancy," said Salemina drily.
"What subtle associations have you already established in Ireland?"

"Let me see," she responded thoughtfully; "the list is not a long
one. Limerick and Carrickmacross for lace, Shandon for the bells,

Blarney and Donnybrook for the stone and the fair, Kilkenny for the
cats, and Balbriggan for the stockings."

"You are sordid this morning," reproved Salemina; "it would be
better if you remembered Limerick by the famous siege, and

Balbriggan as the place where King William encamped with his army
after the battle of the Boyne."

"I've studied the song-writers more than the histories and
geographies," I said, "so I should like to go to Bray and look up

the Vicar, then to Coleraine to see where Kitty broke the famous
pitcher; or to Tara, where the harp that once, or to Athlone, where

dwelt Widow Malone, ochone, and so on; just start with an armful of
Tom Moore's poems and Lover's and Ferguson's, and, yes," I added

generously, "some of the nice moderns, and visit the scenes they've
written about."

"And be disappointed," quoth Francesca cynically. "Poets see
everything by the light that never was on sea or land; still I won't

deny that they help the blind, and I should rather like to know if
there are still any Nora Creinas and Sweet Peggies and Pretty Girls

Milking their Cows."
"I am very anxious to visit as many of the Round Towers as

possible," said Salemina. "When I was a girl of seventeen I had a
very dear friend, a young Irishman, who has since become a well-

known antiquary and archaeologist. He was a student, and
afterwards, I think, a professor here in Trinity College, but I have

not heard from him for many years."
"Don't look him up, darling," pleaded Francesca. "You are so much

our superior now that we positively must protect you from all
elevating influences."

"I won't insist on the Round Towers," smiled Salemina, "and I think
Penelope's idea a delightful one; we might add to it a sort of

literarypilgrimage to the homes and haunts of Ireland's famous
writers."

"I didn't know that she had any," interrupted Francesca.
This is a favourite method of conversation with that spoiled young

person; it seems to appeal to her in three different ways: she
likes to belittle herself, she likes to shock Salemina, and she

likes to have information given her on the spot in some succinct,
portable, convenient form.

"Oh," she continued apologetically, "of course there are Dean Swift
and Thomas Moore and Charles Lever."

"And," I added "certain minor authors named Goldsmith, Sterne,
Steele, and Samuel Lover."

"And Bishop Berkeley, and Brinsley Sheridan, and Maria Edgeworth,
and Father Prout," continued Salemina, "and certain great speech-

makers like Burke and Grattan and Curran; and how delightful to
visit all the places connected with Stella and Vanessa, and the spot

where Spenser wrote the Faerie Queene."
"'Nor own a land on earth but one,

We're Paddies, and no more,'"
sang Francesca. "You will be telling me in a moment that Thomas

Carlyle was born in Skereenarinka, and that Shakespeare wrote Romeo
and Juliet in Coolagarranoe," for she had drawn the guidebook toward

her and made good use of it. "Let us do the literarypilgrimage,
certainly, before we leave Ireland, but suppose we begin with

something less intellectual. This is the most pugnacious map I ever
gazed upon. All the names seem to begin or end with kill, bally,

whack, shock, or knock; no wonder the Irish make good soldiers!
Suppose we start with a sanguinary trip to the Kill places, so that

I can tell any timid Americans I meet in travelling that I have been
to Kilmacow and to Kilmacthomas, and am going to-morrow to Kilmore,

and the next day to Kilumaule."
"I think that must have been said before," I objected.

"It is so obvious that it's not unlikely," she rejoined; "then let
us simply agree to go afterwards to see all the Bally places from

Ballydehob on the south to Ballycastle or Ballymoney on the north,
and from Ballynahinch or Ballywilliam on the east to Ballyvaughan or

Ballybunnion on the west, and passing through, in transit,