m intuition of their foolishness,
or so it seems to me. 'The science' made it easier for her to seek her
ancestors in a foreign country with only a hundred dollars in her purse;
for the Salem priestess proclaims the glad tidings that all the wealth
of the world is ours, if we will but assert our heirship. Benella
believed this more or less until a week's sea-sickness undermined all
her new convictions of every sort. When she woke in the little bedroom
at O'Carolan's, she says, her heart was quite at rest, for she knew that
we were the kind of people one could rely on! I mustered courage to
say, "I hope so, and I hope also that we shall be able to rely upon you,
Benella!"

This idea evidently had not occurred to her, but she accepted it, and I
could see that she turned it over in her mind. You can imagine that this
vague philosophy of a Salem woman scientist superimposed on a foundation
of orthodoxy makes a curious combination, and one which will only be
temporary.

We shall expect you to-morrow evening, and we shall be quite ready to go
on to the Lakes of Killarney or wherever you wish. By the way, I met
an old acquaintance the morning I arrived here. I went to see Queen's
College; and as I was walking under the archway which has carved upon
it, 'Where Finbarr taught let Munster learn,' I saw two gentlemen. They
looked like professors, and I asked if I might see the college. They
said certainly, and offered to take my card into some one who would
do the honours properly. I passed it to one of them: we looked at each
other, and recognition was mutual. He (Dr. La Touche) is giving a course
of lectures here on Irish Antiquities. It has been a great privilege to
see this city and its environs with so learned a man; I wish you could
have shared it. Yesterday he made up a party and we went to Passage,
which you may remember in Father Prout's verses:--

'The town of Passage is both large and spacious,
And situated upon the say;
'Tis nate and dacent, and quite adjacent
To come from Cork on a summer's day.
There you may slip in and take a dippin'
Fornent the shippin' that at anchor ride;
Or in a wherry cross o'er the ferry
To Carrigaloe, on the other side.'

Dr. La Touche calls Father Prout an Irish potato seasoned with Attic
salt. Is not that a good characterisation?

Good-bye for the moment, as I must see about Benella's luncheon.

Yours affectionately S.P.