boiled potatoes, with unfailing regularity, finishing off at most
hotels with semolina pudding, a concoction intended for, and

appealing solely to, the taste of the toothless infant, who, having
just graduated from rubber rings, has not a jaded palate.

How the long breakfast bill at an up-to-date Belfast hostelry awed
us, after weeks of bacon and eggs! The viands on the menu swam

together before our dazed eyes.
Porridge

Fillets of Plaice
Whiting

Fried Sole
Savoury Omelet

Kidneys and Bacon
Cold Meats.

I looked at this array like one in a dream, realising that I had
lost the power of selection, and remembering the scientific fact

that unused faculties perish for want of exercise. The man who was
serving us rattled his tray, shifted his weight wearily from one

foot to the other and cleared his throat suggestively; until at last
I said hastily, "Bacon and eggs, please," and Salemina, the most

critical person in the party, murmured, "The same."
It is odd to see how soon, if one has a strong sense of humanity,

one feels at home in a foreign country. I, at least, am never
impressed by the differences, but only by the similarities, between

English-speaking peoples. We take part in the life about us here,
living each experience as fully as we can, whether it be a 'hiring

fair' in Donegal or a pilgrimage to the Doon 'Well of Healing.' Not
the least part of the pleasure is to watch its effect upon the

Derelict. Where, or in what way, could three persons hope to gain
as much return from a monthlyexpenditure of twenty dollars, added

to her living and travelling expenses, as we have had in Miss
Benella Dusenberry? We sometimes ask ourselves what we found to do

with our time before she came into the family, and yet she is as
busy as possible herself.

Having twice singed Francesca's beautiful locks, she no longer
attempts hair-dressing; while she never accomplishes the lacing of

an evening dress without putting her knee in the centre of your back
once, at least, during the operation. She can button shoes, and she

can mend and patch and darn to perfection; she has a frenzy for
small laundry operations, and, after washing the windows of her

room, she adorns every pane of glass with a fine cambric
handkerchief, and, stretching a line between the bedpost and the

bureau knob, she hangs out her white neckties and her bonnet strings
to dry. She has learned to pack reasonably well, too. But if she

has another passion beside those of washing and mending, it is for
making bags. She buys scraps of gingham and print, and makes cases

of every possible size and for every possible purpose; so that all
our personal property, roughly speaking--hair-brushes, shoes,

writing materials, pincushions, photographs, underclothing, gloves,
medicines,--is bagged. The strings in the bags pull both ways, and

nothing is commoner than to see Benella open and close seventeen or
eighteen of them when she is searching for Francesca's rubbers or my

gold thimble. But what other lady's-maid or travelling companion
ever had half the Derelict's unique charm and interest, half her

conversational power, her unusual and original defects and virtues?
Put her in a third-class carriage when we go 'first,' and she makes

friends with all her fellow-travellers, discussing Home Rule or Free
Silver with the utmostprejudice and vehemence, and freeing her mind

on any point, to the delight of the natives. Occasionally, when
borne along by the joy of argument, she forgets to change at the

point of junction, and has to be found and dragged out of the
railway carriage; occasionally, too, she is left behind when taking

a cheerful cup of tea at a way station, but this is comparatively
seldom. Her stories of life belowstairs in the various inns and

hotels, her altercations with housemaid or boots or landlady in our
behalf, all add a zest to the day's doings.

Benella's father was an itinerant preacher, her mother the daughter
of a Vermont farmer; and although she was left an orphan at ten

years, educating and supporting herself as best she could after
that, she is as truly a combination of both parents as her name is a

union of their two names.
"I'm so 'fraid I shan't run across any of grandmother's folks over

here, after all," she said yesterday, "though I ask every nice-
appearin' person I meet anywheres if he or she's any kin to Mary

Boyce of Trim; and then, again, I'm scared to death for fear I shall
find I'm own cousin to one of these here critters that ain't brushed

their hair nor washed their apurns for a month o' Sundays! I
declare, it keeps me real nerved up . . . I think it's partly the

climate that makes 'em so slack," she philosophised, pinning a new
bag on her knee, and preparing to backstitch the seam. "There's

nothin' like a Massachusetts winter for puttin' the git-up-an'-git
into you. Land! you've got to move round smart, or you'd freeze in

your tracks. These warm, moist places always makes folks lazy; and
when they're hot enough, if you take notice, it makes heathen of

'em. It always seems so queer to me that real hot weather and the
Christian religion don't seem to git along together. P'r'aps it's

just as well that the idol-worshippers should get used to heat in
this world, for they'll have it consid'able hot in the next one, I

guess! And see here, Mrs. Beresford, will you get me ten cents'--I
mean sixpence--worth o' red gingham to make Miss Monroe a bag for

Mr. Macdonald's letters? They go sprawlin' all over her trunk; and
there's so many of 'em I wish to the land she'd send 'em to the bank

while she's travellin'!"
Chapter XX. We evict a tenant.

'Soon as you lift the latch, little ones are meeting you,
Soon as you're 'neath the thatch, kindly looks are

greeting you;
Scarcely have you time to be holding out the fist to them--

Down by the fireside you're sitting in the midst of them.'
Francis Fahy.

Roothythanthrum Cottage,
Knockcool, County Tyrone.

Of course, we have always intended sooner or later to forsake this
life of hotels and lodgings, and become either Irish landlords or

tenants, or both, with a view to the better understanding of one
burning Irish question. We heard of a charming house in County

Down, which could be secured by renting it the first of May for the
season; but as we could occupy it only for a month at most we were

obliged to forego the opportunity.
"We have been told from time immemorial that absenteeism has been

one of the curses of Ireland," I remarked to Salemina; "so, whatever
the charms of the cottage in Rostrevor, do not let us take it, and

in so doing become absentee landlords."
"It was you two who hired the 'wee theekit hoosie' in Pettybaw,"

said Francesca. "I am going to be in the vanguard of the next
house-hunting expedition; in fact, I have almost made up my mind to

take my third of Benella and be an independent householder for a
time. If I am ever to learn the management of an establishment

before beginning to experiment on Ronald's, now is the proper
moment."

"Ronald must have looked the future in the face when he asked you to
marry him," I replied, "although it is possible that he looked only

at you, and therefore it is his duty to endure your maiden
incapacities; but why should Salemina and I suffer you to experiment

upon us, pray?"
It was Benella, after all, who inveigled us into making our first

political misstep; for, after avoiding the sin of absenteeism, we
fell into one almost as black, inasmuch as we evicted a tenant. It

is part of Benella's heterogeneous and unusual duty to take a
bicycle and scour the country in search of information for us: to