and chintz, and the smell of fruit and flowers
everywhere. You will want to see it all, and you'll want to live
here.

There's little rain here, so it's not like Ireland, and the green is
not so green; but the flowers are marvellously bright, and the birds
sing almost as well as they sing in Ireland, though there's no lark.
Strange it is, but true, the only things that draw me back to
Ireland in my soul are you, and Sheila, whom I've never seen, and
the lark singing as he rises until he becomes a grey-blue speck, and
then vanishing in the sky.

Well, you and the lark have sung in my heart these many days, and
now you must come to me, because I need you. I have placed to your
credit in the Bank of Ireland a thousand pounds. That will be the
means of bringing you here--you and Sheila--to my door, to Moira.
Let nothing save death prevent your coming. As far as Sheila's eye
can see-north, south, east, and west--the land will be hers when I'm
gone. Dearest sister, sell all things that are yours, and come to
me. You'll not forget Ireland here. Whoever has breathed her air
can never forget the hills and dells, the valleys and bogs, the
mountains, with their mists of rain, the wild girls, with their bare
ankles, their red petticoats, and their beautiful, reckless air.
None who has ever breathed the air of Ireland can breathe in another
land without memory of the ancient harp of Ireland. But it is as a
memory-deep, wonderful, and abiding, yet a memory. I sometimes
think I have forgotten, and then I hear coming through this Virginia
the notes of some old Irish melody, the song of some wayfarer of
Mayo or Connemara, and I know then that Ireland is persuasive and
perpetual; but only as a memory, because it speaks in every pulse
and beats in every nerve.

Oh, believe me, I speak of what I know! I have been away from
Ireland for a long time, and I'm never going back, but I'll bring
Ireland to me. Come here, colleen, come to Virginia. Write to me,
on the day you get this letter, that you're coming soon. Let it be
soon, because I feel the cords binding me to my beloved fields
growing thinner. They'll soon crack, but, please God, they won't
crack before you come here.

Now with my love to you and Sheila I stretch out my hand to you.
Take it. All that it is has worked for is yours; all that it wants
is you.