ny idea of falling in with her proposal. The
house proved everything she said, and in Mrs. Wogan Odevaine Benella had
found a person every whit as remarkable as herself. She is evidently an
Irish gentlewoman of very small means, very flexible in her views and
convictions, very talkative and amusing, and very much impressed with
Benella as a product of New England institutions. We all took a fancy
to one another at first sight, and we heard with real pleasure that
her son's wife lived only a few miles away. We insisted on paying the
evicted lady the three pounds ten in advance for the first week. She
seemed surprised, and we remembered that Irish tenants, though often
capable of shedding blood for a good landlord, are generally averse
to paying him rent. Mrs. Wogan Odevaine then drove away in high good
humour, taking some personal belongings with her, and promising to drink
tea with us some time during the week. She kissed Francesca good-bye,
told her she was the prettiest creature she had ever seen, and asked if
she might have a peep at all her hats and frocks when she came to visit
us.

Salemina says that Rhododendron Cottage (pronounced by Bridget Thunder
'Roothythanthrum') being the property of one landlord and the residence
of four tenants at the same time makes us in a sense participators in
the old system of rundale tenure, long since abolished. The good-will
or tenant-right was infinitely subdivided, and the tiniest holdings
sometimes existed in thirty-two pieces. The result of this joint tenure
was an extraordinary tangle, particularly when it went so far as the
subdivision of 'one cow's grass,' or even of a horse, which, being owned
jointly by three men, ultimately went lame, because none of them would
pay for shoeing the fourth foot.

We have been here five days, and instead of reproving Benella, as we
intended, for gross assumption of authority in the matter, we are more
than ever her bond-slaves. The place is altogether charming, and here it
is for you.

Knockcool Street is Knockcool village itself, as with almost all Irish
towns; but the line of little thatched cabins is brightened at the far
end by the neat house of Mrs. Wogan Odevaine, set a trifle back in its
own garden, by the pillared porch of a modest hotel, and by the barracks
of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The sign of the Provincial Bank of
Ireland almost faces our windows; and although it is used as a meal-shop
the rest of the week, they tell