breathe in this sense of general comfort, good cheer, and abundance.
Benella is radiant, for she is near enough to Trim to go there

occasionally to seek for traces of her ancestress, Mary Boyce; and
as for Salemina, this bit of country is a Mecca for antiquaries and

scholars, and we are fairly surrounded by towers, tumuli, and
cairns. "It's mostly ruins they do be wantin', these days," said a

waysideacquaintance. "I built a stone house for my donkey on the
knockaun beyant my cabin just, and bedad, there's a crowd round it

every Saturday callin' it the risidence of wan of the Danish kings!
An' they are diggin' at Tara now, ma'am, looking for the Ark of the

Covenant! They do be sayin' the prophet Jeremiah come over from
England and brought it wid him. Begorra, it's a lucky man he was to

get away wid it!"
Added to these advantages of position, we are within a few miles of

Rosnaree, Dr. La Touche's demesne, to which he comes home from
Dublin to-morrow, bringing with him our dear Mr. and Mrs. Colquhoun

of Ardnagreena. We have been here ourselves for ten days, and are
flattered to think that we have used the time as unconventionally as

we could well have done. We made a literarypilgrimage first, but
that is another story, and I will only say that we had a day in

Edgeworthstown and a drive through Goldsmith's country, where we saw
the Deserted Village, with its mill and brook, the 'church that tops

the neighbouring hill'; and even rested under
'The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade

For talking age and whispering lovers made.'
There are many parts of Ireland where one could not find a habitable

house to rent, but in this locality they are numerous enough to make
it possible to choose. We had driven over perhaps twenty square

miles of country, with the view of selecting the most delectable
spot that could be found, without going too far from Rosnaree. The

chief trouble was that we always desired every dwelling that we saw.
I tell you this with a view of lessening the shock when I confess

that, before we came to the Old Hall where we are now settled for a
month, and which was Salemina's choice, Francesca and I took two

different houses, and lived in them for seven days, each in solitary
splendour, like the Prince of Coolavin. It was not difficult to

agree upon the district, we were of one mind there: the moment that
we passed the town and drove along the flowery way that leads to

Devorgilla, we knew that it was the road of destiny.
The whitethorn is very late this year, and we found ourselves in the

full glory of it. It is beautiful in all its stages, from the time
when it first opens its buds, to the season when 'every spray is

white with may, and blooms the eglantine.' There is no hint of
green leaf visible then, and every tree is 'as white as snow of one

night.' This is the Gaelic comparison, and the first snow seems
especially white and dazzling, I suppose, when one sees it in the

morning where were green fields the night before. The sloe, which
is the blackthorn, comes still earlier and has fewer leaves. That

is the tree of the old English song:-
'From the white-blossomed sloe

My dear Chloe requested
A sprig her fair breast to adorn.

"No, by Heav'ns!" I exclaimed, "may I perish,
If ever I plant in that bosom a thorn!"'

And it is not only trees, but hedges and bushes and groves of
hawthorn, for a white thorn bush is seldom if ever cut down here,

lest a grieved and displeased fairy look up from the cloven trunk,
and no Irishman could bear to meet the reproach of her eyes. Do not

imagine, however, that we are all in white, like a bride: there is
the pink hawthorn, and there are pink and white horse-chestnuts

laden with flowers, yellow laburnums hanging over whitewashed farm-
buildings, lilacs, and, most wonderful of all, the blaze of the

yellow gorse. There will be a thorn hedge struggling with and
conquering a grey stone wall; then a golden gorse bush struggling

with and conquering the thorn; seeking the sun, it knows no
restraints, and creeping through the barriers of green and white and

grey, it fairly hurls its yellow splendours in great blazing patches
along the wayside. In dazzling glory, in richness of colour, there

is nothing in nature that we can compare with this loveliest and
commonest of all wayside weeds. The gleaming wealth of the Klondike

would make a poor showing beside a single Irish hedgerow; one would
think that Mother Earth had stored in her bosom all the sunniest

gleams of bygone summers, and was now giving them back to the sun
king from whom she borrowed them.

It was at twilight when we first swam this fragrant, golden sea--
twilight, and the birds were singing in every bush; the thrushes and

blackbirds in the blossoming cherry and chestnut-trees were so many
and so tuneful that the chorus was sweet and strong beyond anything

I ever heard. There had been a shower or two, of course; showers
that looked like shimmering curtains of silver gauze, and whether

they lifted or fell the birds went on singing.
"I did not believe such a thing possible but it is lovelier than

Pettybaw," said Francesca; and just here we came in sight of a pink
cottage cuddling on the breast of a hill. Pink the cottage was, as

if it had been hewed out of a coral branch or the heart of a salmon;
pink-washed were the stone walls and posts; pink even were the

chimneys; a green lattice over the front was the only leaf in the
bouquet. Wallflowers grew against the pink stone walls, and there

is no beautiful word in any beautiful language that can describe the
effect of that modest, rose-hued dwelling blushing against a

background of heather-brown hills covered solidly with golden gorse
bushes in full bloom. Himself and I have always agreed to spend our

anniversaries with Mrs. Bobby at Comfort Cottage, in England, or at
Bide-a-Wee, the 'wee, theekit hoosie' in the loaning at Pettybaw,

for our little love-story was begun in the one and carried on in the
other; but this, this, I thought instantly, must somehow be crowded

into the scheme of red-letter days. And now we suddenly discovered
something at once interesting and disconcerting--an American flag

floating from a tree in the background.
"The place is rented, then," said Francesca, "to some enterprising

American or some star-spangled Irishman who has succeeded in
discovering Devorgilla before us. I well understand how the shade

of Columbus must feel whenever Amerigo Vespucci's name is
mentioned!"

We sent the driver off to await our pleasure, and held a
consultation by the wayside.

"I shall call at any rate," I announced; "any excuse will serve
which brings me nearer to that adorable dwelling. I intend to be

standing in that pink doorway, with that green lattice over my head,
when Himself arrives in Devorgilla. I intend to end my days within

those rosy walls, and to begin the process at the earliest possible
moment."

Salemina disapproved, of course. Her method is always to stand well
in the rear, trembling beforehand lest I should do something

unconventional; then, later on, when things romantic begin to
transpire, she says delightedly, "Wasn't that clever of us?"

"An American flag," I urged, "is a proclamation; indeed, it is, in a
sense, an invitation; besides it is my duty to salute it in a

foreign land!"
"Patriotism, how many sins are practised in thy name!" said Salemina

satirically. "Can't you salute your flag from the high-road?"
"Not properly, Sally dear, nor satisfactorily. So you and Francesca

sit down, timidly and respectably, under the safe shadow of the
hedge, while I call upon the blooming family in the darling,

blooming house. I am an American artist, lured to their door alike
by devotion to my country's flag and love of the picturesque." And

so saying I ascended the path with some dignity and a false show of
assurance.

The circumstances did not chance to be precisely what I had
expected. There was a nice girl tidying the kitchen, and I found no