ery movement and expression. The big woman
talked to her about some elderly man who had been sick--her
husband, it was likely--and some young man who had gone away to
England, and was breaking his heart with loneliness.

'Ah, poor fellow!' she said; 'I suppose he will get used to it like
another; and wouldn't he be worse off if he was beyond the seas in
Saint Louis, or the towns of America?'

This woman seemed to unite the healthiness of the country people
with the greatest sensitiveness, and whenever there was any little
stir or joke in the carriage, her face and neck flushed with
pleasure and amusement. As we went on there were superb sights--first
on the north, towards Loop Head, and then when we reached the
top of the ridge, to the south also, to Drung Hill, Macgillicuddy's
Reeks, and other mountains of South Kerry. A little further on,
nearly all the people got out at a small station; and the young
woman I had admired gathered up most of the household goods and got
down also, lifting heavy boxes with the power of a man. Then two
returned American girls got in, fine, stout-looking women, with
distress in their expression, and we started again. Dingle Bay could
now be seen through narrow valleys on our left, and had
extraordinary beauty in the evening light. In the carriage next to
ours a number of herds and jobbers were travelling, and for the last
hour they kept up a furious altercation that seemed always on the
verge of breaking out into a dangerous quarrel, but no blows were
given.

At the end of the line an old blue side-car was waiting to take me
to the village where I was going. I was some time fastening on my
goods, with the raggedy boy who was to drive me; and then we set off
passing through the usual streets of a Kerry town, with public-houses
at the corners, till we left the town by a narrow quay with a
few sailing boats and a small steamer with coal. Then we went over a
bridge near a large water-mill, where a number of girls were
standing about, with black shawls over their heads, and turned sharp
to the right, against the face of the mountains. At first we went up
hill for several miles, and got on slowly, though the boy jumped
down once or twice and gathered a handful of switches to beat the
tall mare he was driving. Just as the twilight was beginning to
deepen we reached the top of the ridge and came out through a gap
into sight of Smerwick Harbour, a wild bay with magnificent
headlands beyond it,