illed on a violet
background, in a way peculiar to itself and enchantingly lovely.

The waste of all God's gifts; the incredible poverty; the miserable
huts, often without window or chimney; the sad-eyed women, sometimes
nothing but 'skins, bones, and grief'; the wild, beautiful children,
springing up like startled deer from behind piles of rocks or growths of
underbrush; the stony little bits of earth which the peasants cling to
with such passion, while good grasslands lie unused, yet seem for ever
out of reach,--all this makes one dream, and wonder, and speculate, and
hope against hope that the worst is over and a better day dawning. We
passed within sight of a hill village without a single road to
connect it with the outer world. The only supply of turf was on the
mountain-top, and from thence it had to be brought, basket by basket,
even in the snow. The only manure for such land is seaweed, and that
must be carried from the shore to the tiny plats of sterile earth on the
hillside. I remember it all, for I refused to buy a pair of stockings of
a woman along the road. We had taken so many that my courage failed; but
I saw her climbing the slopes patiently, wearily, a shawl over her white
hair,--knitting, knitting, knitting, as she walked in the rain to her
cabin somewhere behind the high hills. We never give to beggars in any
case, but we buy whatever we can as we are able; and why did I draw the
line at that particular pair of stockings, only to be haunted by that
pathetic figure for the rest of my life? Beggars there are by the score,
chiefly in the tourist districts; but it is only fair to add that there
are hundreds of huts where it would be a dire insult to offer a penny
for a glass of water, a sup of milk, or the shelter of a turf fire.

As we drive along the road, we see, if the umbrellas can be closed for a
half-hour, flocks of sheep grazing on the tops of the hills, where it is
sunnier, where food is better and flies less numerous. Crystal streams
and waterfalls are pouring down the hillsides to lose themselves in one
of Connemara's many bays, and we have a glimpse of osmunda fern, golden
green and beautiful. It was under a branch of this Osmunda regalis
that the Irish princess lay hidden, they say, till she had evaded her
pursuers. The blue turf smoke rises here and there,--now from a cabin
with house-leek growing on the crumbling thatch, now from one whose roof
is held on by ropes and stones,--and there is