is quite worthy of you; we
can say no more."

We had now developed so many more ideas than we could possibly use that
the labour of deciding among them was the next thing to be done. Each of
us stood out boldly for her own project,--even Francesca clinging, from
sheer wilfulness, to her worthless and absurd itineraries,--until, in
order to bring the matter to any sort of decision, somebody suggested
that we consult Benella; which reminds me that you have not yet the
pleasure of Benella's acquaintance.

Chapter III. We sight a derelict.

'O Bay of Dublin, my heart you're troublin',
Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream.'
Lady Dufferin.

To perform the introduction properly I must go back a day or two. We
had elected to cross to Dublin directly from Scotland, an easy night
journey. Accordingly we embarked in a steamer called the Prince or the
King of something or other, the name being many degrees more princely or
kingly than the craft itself.

We had intended, too, to make our own comparison of the Bay of Dublin
and the Bay of Naples, because every traveller, from Charles Lever's
Jack Hinton down to Thackeray and Mr. Alfred Austin has always made it a
point of honour to do so. We were balked in our conscientious endeavour,
because we arrived at the North Wall forty minutes earlier than the hour
set by the steamship company. It is quite impossible for anything in
Ireland to be done strictly on the minute, and in struggling not to be
hopelessly behind time, a 'disthressful counthry' will occasionally be
ahead of it. We had been told that we should arrive in a drizzling rain,
and that no one but Lady Dufferin had ever on approaching Ireland seen
the 'sweet faces of the Wicklow mountains reflected in a smooth and
silver sea.' The grumblers were right on this special occasion, although
we have proved them false more than once since.

I was in a fever of fear that Ireland would not be as Irish as we wished
it to be. It seemed probable that processions of prosperous aldermen,
school directors, contractors, mayors, and ward politicians, returning
to their native land to see how Herself was getting on, the crathur,
might have deposited on the soil successive layers of Irish-American
virtues, such as punctuality, thrift, and cleanliness, until they had
quite obscured fair Erin's peculiar and pathetic charm. We longed for
the new Ireland as fervently as any of her o