un off to see the sights. I was all over
Lisbon this morning; saw the Inquisition and the cells and the place where
they tried the fellows,--the kind of grand jury room with the great picture
of Adam and Eve at the end of it. What a beautiful creature she is; hair
down to her waist, and such eyes! 'Ah, ye darling!' said I to myself,
'small blame to him for what he did. Wouldn't I ate every crab in the
garden, if ye asked me!'"

"I must certainly go to see her, Maurice. Is she very Portuguese in her
style?"

"Devil a bit of it! She might be a Limerick-woman with elegant brown hair
and blue eyes and a skin like snow."

"Come, come, they've pretty girls in Lisbon too, Doctor."

"Yes, faith," said Power, "that they have."

"Nothing like Ireland, boys; not a bit of it; they're the girls for my
money; and where's the man can resist them? From Saint Patrick, that had to
go and live in the Wicklow mountains--"

"Saint Kevin, you mean, Doctor."

"Sure it's all the same, they were twins. I made a little song about them
one evening last week,--the women I mean."

"Let us have it, Maurice; let us have it, old fellow. What's the measure?"

"Short measure; four little verses, devil a more!"

"But the time, I mean?"

"Whenever you like to sing it; here it is,"--

THE GIRLS OF THE WEST.

Air,--"_Teddy, ye Gander_."

(_With feeling: but not too slow_.)

You may talk, if you please,
Of the brown Portuguese,
But wherever you roam, wherever you roam,
You nothing will meet,
Half so lovely or sweet,
As the girls at home, the girls at home.

Their eyes are not sloes,
Nor so long is their nose,
But between me and you, between me and you,
They are just as alarming,
And ten times more charming,
With hazel and blue, with hazel and blue.

They don't ogle a man,
O'er the top of their fan
Till his heart's in a flame, till his heart's in a flame
But though bashful and shy,
They've a look in their eye
That just comes to the same, just comes to the same.

No mantillas they sport,
But a petticoat short
Shows an ankle the best, an ankle the best,
And a leg--but, O murther!
I dare not go further;
So here's to the west, so here's to the west.

"Now that really is a sweet little thing. Moore's isn't it?"

"Not a bit of it; my own muse, every word of it."

"And the music?" said I.

"My own, too. Too much spice in t