llow; the hard part of
it being the occasional necessity for work, which spoils the tenderness
and continuity of the dream."

Presently we passed the Castle, rode along a neat quay with a row of
houses advertising lodgings to let; and here is Lever Cottage, where
Harry Lorrequer was written; for Lever was dispensary doctor in Port
Stewart when his first book was appearing in the Dublin University
Magazine.

We did not fancy Coleraine; it looked like anything but Cuil-rathain, a
ferny corner. Kitty's sweet buttermilk may have watered, but it had
not fertilised the plain, though the town itself seemed painfully
prosperous. Neither the Clothworkers' Inn nor the Corporation Arms
looked a pleasant stopping-place, and the humble inn we finally selected
for a brief rest proved to be about as gay as a family vault, with
a landlady who had all the characteristics of a poker except its
occasional warmth, as the Liberator said of another stiff and formal
person. Whether she was Scot or Saxon I know not; she was certainly not
Celt, and certainly no Barney McCrea of her day would have kissed her
if she had spilled ever so many pitchers of sweet buttermilk over the
plain; so we took the railway, and departed with delight for Limavady,
where Thackeray, fresh from his visit to Charles Lever, laid his
poetical tribute at the stockingless feet of Miss Margaret of that town.

O'Cahan, whose chief seat was at Limavady, was the principal urraght of
O'Neill, and when one of the great clan was 'proclaimed' at Tullaghogue
it was the magnificent privilege of the O'Cahan to toss a shoe over
his head. We slept at O'Cahan's Hotel, and--well, one must sleep; and
wherever we attend to that necessary function without due preparation,
we generally make a mistake in the selection of the particular spot.
Protestantism does not necessarily mean cleanliness, although it may
have natural tendencies in that direction; and we find, to our surprise
( a surprise rooted, probably, in bigotry), that Catholicism can be
as clean as a penny whistle, now and again. There were no special
privileges at O'Cahan's for maids, and Benella, therefore, had a
delightful evening in the coffee-room with a storm-bound commercial
traveller. As for Francesca and me, there was plenty to occupy us in our
regular letters to Ronald and Himself; and Salemina wrote several sheets
of thin paper to somebody,--no one in America, either, for we saw her
put on a penny stamp.

Our pleas