far more joyfully would I be at Manchester,
triste as it may be."

Just then a gust of wind blew his cape over his head and snapped his
parasol.

"It is evidently it has been made in Ireland," he sighed, with a
desperate attempt at gaiety. "It should have had a grosser stem,
and helas! it must not be easy to have it mended in these barbarous
veelages."

We stopped at four o'clock at a wayside hostelry, and I had quietly
made up my mind to descend from the car, and take rooms for the night,
whatever the place might be. Unfortunately, the same idea occurred to
three or four of the soaked travellers; and as men could leap down,
while ladies must wait for the steps, the chivalrous sex, their manners
obscured by the circular tour system, secured the rooms, and I was
obliged to ascend again, wetter than ever, to my perch beside the
driver.

"Can I get the box seat, do you think, if I pay extra for it?" I had
asked one of the stablemen before breakfast.

"You don't need to be payin', miss! Just confront the driver, and you'll
get it aisy!" If, by the way, I had confronted him at the end instead of
at the beginning of the journey, my charms certainly would not have
been all-powerful, for my coat had been leaked upon by red and green
umbrellas, my hat was a shapeless jelly, and my face imprinted with the
spots from a drenched blue veil.

After two hours more of this we reached the Shan Van Vocht Hotel, where
we had engaged apartments; but we found to our consternation that it was
full, and that we had been put in lodgings a half-mile away.

Salemina, whose patience was quite exhausted by the discomforts of the
day, groaned aloud when we were deposited at the door of a village shop,
and ushered upstairs to our tiny quarters; but she ceased abruptly when
she really took note of our surroundings. Everything was humble, but
clean and shining--glass, crockery, bedding, floor, on the which we were
dripping pools of water, while our landlady's daughter tried to make us
more comfortable.

"It's a soft night we're havin'," she said, in a dove's voice, "but
we'll do right enough if the win' doesn't rise up on us."

Left to ourselves, we walked about the wee rooms on ever new and more
joyful voyages of discovery. The curtains rolled up and down easily; the
windows were propped upon nice clean sticks instead of tennis rackets
and hearth brushes; there was a well-washed stone to keep the curtain
down on the sill; and just outside