fact that I had seen Salemina's ivory-backed hairbrush put to
excellent if somewhat unusual and unaccustomed service.

Each party in the house eats in solitary splendour, like the
MacDermott, Prince of Coolavin. That royal personage of County

Sligo did not, I believe, allow his wife or his children (who must
have had the MacDermott blood in their veins, even if somewhat

diluted) to sit at table with him. This method introduces the last
element of confusion into the household arrangements, and on two

occasions we have had our custardpudding or stewed fruit served in
our bedrooms a full hour after we had finished dinner. We have

reasons for wishing to be first to enter the dining-room, and we
walk in with eyes fixed on the ceiling, by far the cleanest part of

the place. Having wended our way through an underbrush of corks
with an empty bottle here and there, and stumbled over the holes in

the carpet, we arrive at our table in the window. It is as
beautiful as heaven outside, and the table-cloth is at least cleaner

than it will be later, for Mrs. Waterford of Mullinavat has an
unsteady hand.

When Oonah brings in the toast rack now she balances it carefully,
remembering the morning when she dropped it on the floor, but picked

up the slices and offered them to Salemina. Never shall I forget
that dear martyr's expression, which was as if she had made up her

mind to renounce Ireland and leave her to her fate. I know she
often must wonder if Dr. La Touche's servants, like Mrs.

Mullarkey's, feel of the potatoes to see whether they are warm or
cold!

At ten thirty there is great confusion and laughter and excitement,
for the sportsmen are setting out for the day and the car has been

waiting at the door for an hour. Oonah is carolling up and down the
long passage, laden with dishes, her cheerfulness not in the least

impaired by having served seven or eight separate breakfasts. Molly
has spilled a jug of milk, and is wiping it up with a child's

undershirt. The Glasgy man is telling them that yesterday they
forgot the corkscrew, the salt, the cup, and the jam from the

luncheon basket,--facts so mirth-provoking that Molly wipes tears of
pleasure from her eyes with the milky undershirt, and Oonah sets the

hot-water jug and the coffee-pot on the stairs to have her laugh out
comfortably. When once the car departs, comparative quiet reigns in

and about the house until the passing bicyclers appear for luncheon
or tea, when Oonah picks up the napkins that we have rolled into

wads and flung under the dining-table, and spreads them on tea-
trays, as appetising details for the weary traveller. There would

naturally be more time for housework if so large a portion of the
day were not spent in pleasant interchange of thought and speech. I

can well understand Mrs. Colquhoun's objections to the housing of
the Dublin poor in tenements,--even in those of a better kind than

the present horrible examples; for wherever they are huddled
together in any numbers they will devote most of their time to

conversation. To them talking is more attractive than eating; it
even adds a new joy to drinking; and if I may judge from the groups

I have seen gossiping over a turf fire till midnight, it is
preferable to sleeping. But do not suppose they will bubble over

with joke and repartee, with racy anecdote, to every casual
newcomer. The tourist who looks upon the Irishman as the merry-

andrew of the English-speaking world, and who expects every jarvey
he meets to be as whimsical as Mickey Free, will be disappointed. I

have strong suspicions that ragged, jovial Mickey Free himself,
delicious as he is, was created by Lever to satisfy the Anglo-Saxon

idea of the low-comedy Irishman. You will live in the Emerald Isle
for many a month, and not meet the clown or the villain so familiar

to you in modern Irish plays. Dramatists have made a stage Irishman
to suit themselves, and the public and the gallery are disappointed

if anything more reasonable is substituted for him. You will find,
too, that you do not easily gain Paddy's confidence. Misled by his

careless, reckless impetuosity of demeanour, you might expect to be
the confidant of his joys and sorrows, his hopes and expectations,

his faiths and beliefs, his aspirations, fears, longings, at the
first interview. Not at all; you will sooner be admitted to a

glimpse of the travelling Scotsman's or the Englishman's inner life,
family history, personal ambition. Glacial enough at first and far

less voluble, he melts soon enough, if he likes you. Meantime, your
impulsive Irish friend gives himself as freely at the first

interview as at the twentieth; and you know him as well at the end
of a week as you are likely to at the end of a year. He is a

product of the past, be he gentleman or peasant. A few hundred
years of necessary reserve concerning articles of political and

religious belief have bred caution and prudence in stronger natures,
cunning and hypocrisy in weaker ones.

Our days are very varied. We have been several times into the town
and spent an hour in the Petty Sessions Court with Mr. Colquhoun,

who sits on the bench. Each time we have come home laden with
stories 'as good as any in the books,' so says Francesca. Have we

not with our own eyes seen the settlement of an assault and battery
case between two of the most notorious brawlers in that alley of the

town which we have dubbed 'The Pass of the Plumes.'* Each barrister
in the case had a handful of hair which he introduced on behalf of

his client, both ladies apparently having pulled with equal energy.
These most unattractive exhibits were shown to the women themselves,

each recognising her own hair, but denying the validity of the other
exhibit firmly and vehemently. Prisoner number one kneeled at the

rail and insisted on exposing the place in her head from which the
hair had been plucked; upon which prisoner number two promptly tore

off her hat, scattered hairpins to the four winds, and exposed her
own wounds to the judicial eye. Both prisoners 'had a dhrop taken'

just before the affair; that soft impeachment they could not deny.
One of them explained, however, that she had taken it to help her

over a hard job of work, and through a little miscalculation of
quantity it had 'overaided her.' The other termagant was asked

flatly by the magistrate if she had ever seen the inside of a jail
before, but evaded the point with much grace and ingenuity by

telling his Honour that he couldn't expect to meet a woman anywhere
who had not suffered a misforchin somewhere betwixt the cradle and

the grave.
*The original Pass of the Plumes is near Maryborough, and was

so called from the number of English helmet plumes that were strewn
about after O'Moore's fight with five hundred of the Earl of Essex's

men.
Even the all too common drunk-and-disorderly cases had a flavour of

their own, for one man, being dismissed with a small fine under
condition that he would sign the pledge, assented willingly; but on

being asked for how long he would take it, replied, 'I mostly take
it for life, your worship.'

We also heard the testimony of a girl who had run away from her
employer before the completion of her six months' contract, her plea

being that the fairies pulled her great toe at night so that she
could not sleep, whereupon she finally became so lame that she was

unable to work. She left her employer's house one evening,
therefore, and went home, and curiously enough the fairies 'shtopped

pulling the toe on her as soon as iver she got there!'
Not the least enlivening of the prisoners was a decently educated

person who had been arrested for disturbing the peace. The
constable asserted that he was intoxicated, but the gentleman

himself insisted that he was merely a poet in a more than usually
inspired state.

"I am in the poeticaladvertising line, your worship. It is true I
was surrounded by a crowd, but I was merely practising my trade. I

don't mind telling your worship that this holiday-time makes things
a little lively, and the tradesmen drink my health a trifle oftener

than usual; poetry is dry work, your worship, and a poet needs a
good deal of liquidrefreshment. I do not disturb the peace, your

worship, at least not more than any other poet. I go to a grocer's,
and, standing outside, I make up some rhymes about his nice sweet

sugar or his ale. If I want to please a butcher--well, I'll give
you a specimen:-