s have changed little, notwithstanding that
betrothals and marriages have intervened, and in spite of the fact
that Salemina has grown a year younger; a mysterious feat that she has
accomplished on each anniversary of her birth since the forming of our
alliance.

It is many months since we travelled together in Scotland, but on
entering this very room in Dublin, the other day, we proceeded to show
our several individualities as usual: I going to the window to see the
view, Francesca consulting the placard on the door for hours of table
d'hote, and Salemina walking to the grate and lifting the ugly little
paper screen to say, "There is a fire laid; how nice!" As the matron I
have been promoted to a nominal charge of the travelling arrangements.
Therefore, while the others drive or sail, read or write, I am buried
in Murray's Handbook, or immersed in maps. When I sleep, my dreams
are spotted, starred, notched, and lined with hieroglyphics, circles,
horizontal dashes, long lines, and black dots, signifying hotels, coach
and rail routes, and tramways.

All this would have been done by Himself with the greatest ease in the
world. In the humbler walks of Irish life the head of the house, if he
is of the proper sort, is called Himself, and it is in the shadow of
this stately title that my Ulysses will appear in this chronicle.

I am quite sure I do not believe in the inferiority of woman, but I have
a feeling that a man is a trifle superior in practical affairs. If I am
in doubt, and there is no husband, brother, or cousin near, from whom to
seek advice, I instinctively ask the butler or the coachman rather than
a female friend; also, when a female friend has consulted the Bradshaw
in my behalf, I slip out and seek confirmation from the butcher's boy or
the milkman. Himself would have laid out all our journeyings for us, and
we should have gone placidly along in well-ordered paths. As it is,
we are already pledged to do the most absurd and unusual things, and
Ireland bids fair to be seen in the most topsy-turvy, helter-skelter
fashion imaginable.

Francesca's propositions are especially nonsensical, being provocative
of fruitless discussion, and adding absolutely nothing to the sum of
human intelligence.

"Why not start without any special route in view, and visit the towns
with which we already have familiar associations?" she asked. "We should
have all sorts of experiences by the way, and be free from the blighting
inf