s left, through which the
dogs at Knockaloe are keeping up their private correspondence with the
dogs at Ballamoar by the medium of their nightly howls.

"Oh, dear! Only 10.30! And to know that while we are going to bed by
country hours, with nearly everything still and dead around us, London is
just beginning to bestir itself! When I lie down and try to sleep I shall
see the wide squares, with their statues of somebody inside, and the
blaze of lights over the doors of the theatres, and all the tingling life
of the great and wonderful city. Ugh! It makes one feel like one's own
ghost wandering through the upper rooms and across the dark landings, and
hearing the strains of the music and the sounds of the dancing from the
ballroom below stairs!

"But, my goodness! (I can still swear on that, you see, and not be
forsworn!) 'What's the odds if you're jolly?--and I allus is!' How's your
dog? Mine would write you a letter, only her heart is moribund, and if
things go on as they are going she must set about making her will. In
fact, she is now lying at the foot of my bed thinking matters out, and
bids me tell you that after various attempts to escape Home Rule, not
being (like her mistress) one of those natures made perfect through
suffering, she is only 'kept alive by the force of her own volition,' in
this house that is full of old maids and has nothing better in it than
one old cat, and he isn't worth hunting, being destitute of a tail.
Naturally she is doing her best (like somebody else) to keep herself
unspotted from that world which is a source of so much temptation, but
she's bound to confess that a little 'divilment' now and then would help
her to take a more holy and religious view of life.

"I 'wish you happy' in your new enterprise; but if you are going in for
being the champion of woman in this world--of her wrongs--I warn you not
to be too pointed in your moral, for there is a story here of a handsome
young curate who was so particular in the pulpit with 'Lovest thou me'
that a lady followed him into the vestry and admitted that she did.
Soberly, it is a great and noble effort, and I've half a mind to love you
for it. If men want women to be good they _will_ be good, for women dance
to the tune that men like best, and always have done so since the days of
Adam--not forgetting that gentleman's temptation, nor yet his excuse
about 'the woman _Thou gavest_ me,' which shows he wasn't much of a
husband anyway, thoug