nsion, cool and clean and quiet, and fragrant of lavender. It has been
a lovely, generous life, lived for the most part in the shadow of other
people's wishes and plans and desires. I am an impatient person,
I confess, and heaven seems so far away when certain things are in
question: the righting of a child's wrong, or the demolition of a
barrier between two hearts; above all, for certain surgical operations,
more or less spiritual, such as removing scales from eyes that refuse
to see, and stops from ears too dull to hear. Nobody shall have our
Salemina unless he is worthy, but how I should like to see her life
enriched and crowned! How I should enjoy having her dear little overworn
second fiddle taken from her by main force, and a beautiful first
violin, or even the baton for leading an orchestra, put into her
unselfish hands!

And so good-bye and 'good luck to ye, Cork, and your pepper-box
steeple,' for we leave you to-morrow!

Chapter XI. 'The rale thing.'

'Her ancestors were kings before Moses was born,
Her mother descended from great Grana Uaile.'
Charles Lever.

Knockarney House, Lough Lein.

We are in the province of Munster, the kingdom of Kerry, the town of
Ballyfuchsia, and the house of Mrs. Mullarkey. Knockarney House is
not her name for it; I made it myself. Killarney is church of the
sloe-trees; and as kill is church, the 'onderhanded manin'' of 'arney'
must be something about sloes; then, since knock means hill, Knockarney
should be hill of the sloe-trees.

I have not lost the memory of Jenny Geddes and Tam o' the Cowgate, but
Penelope O'Connor, daughter of the king of Connaught, is more frequently
present in my dreams. I have by no means forgotten that there was a
time when I was not Irish, but for the moment I am of the turf, turfy.
Francesca is really as much in love with Ireland as I, only, since she
has in her heart a certain tender string pulling her all the while to
the land of the heather, she naturally avoids comparisons. Salemina,
too, endeavours to appear neutral, lest she should betray an
inexplicable interest in Dr. La Touche's country. Benella and I alone
are really free to speak the brogue, and carry our wild harps slung
behind us, like Moore's minstrel boy. Nothing but the ignorance of her
national dishes keeps Benella from entire allegiance to this island; but
she thinks a people who have grown up w