wn patriots, but we wished
to see the old Ireland before it passed. There is plenty of it left
(alas! the patriots would say), and Dublin was as dear and as dirty as
when Lady Morgan first called it so, long years ago. The boat was met
by a crowd of ragged gossoons, most of them barefooted, some of them
stockingless, and in men's shoes, and several of them with flowers in
their unspeakable hats and caps. There were no cabs or jaunting cars
because we had not been expected so early, and the jarveys were in
attendance on the Holyhead steamer. It was while I was searching for a
piece of lost luggage that I saw the stewardess assisting a young woman
off the gang plank, and leading her toward a pile of wool bags on
the dock. She sank helplessly on one of them, and leaned her head on
another. As the night had been one calculated to disturb the physical
equilibrium of a poor sailor, and the breakfast of a character to
discourage the stoutest stomach, I gave her a careless thought of pity
and speedily forgot her. Two trunks, a holdall, a hatbox--in which
reposed, in solitary grandeur, Francesca's picture hat, intended for
the further undoing of the Irish gentry--a guitar case, two bags, three
umbrellas; all were safe but Salemina's large Vuitton trunk and my
valise, which had been last seen at Edinburgh station. Salemina returned
to the boat, while Francesca and I wended our way among the heaps of
luggage, followed by crowds of ragamuffins, who offered to run for a
car, run for a cab, run for a porter, carry our luggage up the street
to the cab-stand, carry our wraps, carry us, 'do any mortial thing for a
penny, melady, an' there is no cars here, melady, God bless me sowl, and
that He be good to us all if I'm tellin' you a word of a lie!'

Entirely unused to this flow of conversation, we were obliged to stop
every few seconds to recount our luggage and try to remember what we
were looking for. We all met finally, and I rescued Salemina from the
voluble thanks of an old woman to whom she had thoughtlessly given a
three-penny bit. This mother of a 'long wake family' was wishing that
Salemina might live to 'ate the hin' that scratched over her grave,
and invoking many other uncommon and picturesque blessings, but we were
obliged to ask her to desist and let us attend to our own business.

"Will I clane the whole of thim off for you for a penny, your ladyship's
honour, ma'am?" asked the oldest of the ragamuffins, and I gladly
asse