slowly, driver, please."
Nevertheless, as we drew nearer we saw that it was Salemina; or at

least it was seven-eighths of her, and one-eighth of a new person
with whom we were not acquainted. She rose to meet us with an

exclamation of astonishment, and after a hasty and affectionate
greeting, presented Dr. La Touche. He said a few courteous words,

and to our relief made no allusions to round towers, duns, raths, or
other antiquities, and bade us adieu, saying that he should have the

honour of waiting upon us that evening with our permission.
A person in a neat black dress and little black bonnet with white

lawn strings now brought up the two children to say good-bye to
Salemina. It was the Derelict, Benella Dusenberry, clothed in

maid's apparel, and looking, notwithstanding that disguise, like a
New England schoolma'am. She was delighted to see us, scanned every

detail of Francesca's travelling costume with the frankest
admiration, and would have allowed us to carry our wraps and

umbrellas upstairs if she had not been reminded by Salemina. We had
a cosy cup of tea together, and told our various adventures, but

Salemina was not especially communicative about hers. Oddly enough,
she had met the La Touche children at the hotel in Mallow. They

were travelling with a very raw Irish nurse, who had no control of
them whatever. They shrieked and kicked when taken to their rooms

at night, until Salemina was obliged to speak to them, in order that
Benella's rest should not be disturbed.

"I felt so sorry for them," she said--"the dear little girl put to
bed with tangled hair and unwashed face, the boy in a rumpled,

untidy nightgown, the bedclothes in confusion. I didn't know who
they were nor where they came from, but while the nurse was getting

her supper I made them comfortable, and Broona went to sleep with my
strange hand in hers. Perhaps it was only the warm Irish heart, the

easy friendliness of the Irish temperament, but I felt as if the
poor little things must be neglected indeed, or they would not have

clung to a woman whom they had never seen before." (This is a
mistake; anybody who has the opportunity always clings to Salemina.)

"The next morning they were up at daylight, romping in the hall,
stamping, thumping, clattering, with a tin cart on wheels rattling

behind them. I know it was not my affair, and I was guilty of
unpardonable rudeness, but I called the nurse into my room and spoke

to her severely" target="_blank" title="ad.剧烈地；严格地">severely. No, you needn't smile; I was severe. 'Will you
kindly do your duty, and keep the children quiet as they pass

through the halls?' I said. 'It is never too soon to teach them to
obey the rules of a public place, and to be considerate of older

people.' She seemed awestruck. But when she found her tongue she
stammered, 'Sure, ma'am, I've tould thim three times this day

already that when their father comes he'll bate thim with a
blackthorn stick!'

"Naturally I was horrified. This, I thought, would explain
everything: no mother, and an irritable, cruel father.

"'Will he really do such a thing?' I asked, feeling as if I must
know the truth.

"'Sure he will not, ma'am!' she answered cheerfully. 'He wouldn't
lift a feather to thim, not if they murdthered the whole

counthryside, ma'am.'
"Well, they travelled third class to Cork, and we came first, so we

did not meet, and I did not ask their surnames; but it seems that
they were being brought to their father, whom I met many years ago

in America."
As she did not volunteer any further information, we did not like to

ask her where, how many years ago, or under what circumstances.
'Teasing' of this sort does not appeal to the sophisticated at any

time, but it seems unspeakably vulgar to touch on matters of
sentiment with a woman of middle age. If she has memories, they are

sure to be sad and sacred ones; if she has not, that perhaps is
still sadder. We agreed, however, when the evening was over, that

Dr. La Touche was probably the love of her youth--unless, indeed, he
was simply an old friend, and the degree of Salemina's attachment

had been exaggerated; something that is very likely to happen in the
gossip of a New England town, where they always incline to

underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that of the
woman, in any love affair. 'I guess she'd take him if she could get

him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in rural or
provincial New England.

The professor is grave, but very genial when he fully recalls the
fact that he is in company, and has not, like the Trappist monks,

taken vows of silence. Francesca behaved beautifully, on the whole,
and made no embarrassing speeches, although she was in her gayest

humour. Salemina blushed a little when the young sinner dragged
into the conversation the remark that, undoubtedly, from the

beginning of the sixth century to the end of the eighth, Ireland was
the University of Europe, just as Greece was in the late days of the

Roman Republic, and asked our guest when Ireland ceased to be known
as 'Insula sanctorum et doctorum,' the island of saints and

scholars.
We had seen her go into Salemina's bedroom, and knew perfectly well

that she had consulted the Peabody notebook, lying open on the desk;
but the professor looked as surprised as if he had heard a pretty

paroquet quote Gibbon. I don't like to see grave and reverend
scholars stare at pretty paroquets, but I won't belittle Salemina's

exquisite and peculiar charm by worrying over the matter.
'Wirra, wirra! Ologone!

Can't ye lave a lad alone,
Till he's proved there's no tradition left of any other girl--

Not even Trojan Helen,
In beauty all excellin'--

Who's been up to half the divilment of Fan Fitzgerl?'
Of course Francesca's heart is fixed upon Ronald Macdonald, but that

fact has not altered the glance of her eyes. They no longer say,
'Wouldn't you like to fall in love with me, if you dared?' but they

still have a gleam that means, 'Don't fall in love with me; it is no
use!' And of the two, one is about as dangerous as the other, and

each has something of 'Fan Fitzgerl's divilment.
'Wid her brows of silky black

Arched above for the attack,
Her eyes they dart such azure death on poor admiring man;

Masther Cupid, point your arrows,
From this out, agin the sparrows,

For you're bested at Love's archery by young Miss Fan.'
Of course Himself never fell a prey to Francesca's fascinations, but

then he is not susceptible; you could send him off for a ten-mile
drive in the moonlight with Venus herself, and not be in the least

anxious.
Dr. La Touche is grey for his years, tall and spare in frame, and

there are many lines of anxiety or thought in his forehead; but a
wonderful smile occasionally smooths them all out, and gives his

face a rare though transientradiance. He looks to me as if he had
loved too many books and too few people; as if he had tried vainly

to fill his heart and life with antiquities, which of all things,
perhaps, are the most bloodless, the least warming and nourishing

when taken in excess or as a steady diet. Himself (God bless him!)
shall never have that patient look, if I can help it; but how it

will appeal to Salemina! There are women who are born to be petted
and served, and there are those who seem born to serve others.

Salemina's first idea is always to make tangled things smooth (like
little Broona's curly hair); to bring sweet and discreet order out

of chaos; to prune and graft and water and weed and tend things,
until they blossom for very shame under her healing touch. Her mind

is catholic, well ordered, and broad,--for ever full of other
people's interests, never of her own: and her heart always seems to