were tiny window gardens, in each of
which grew three marigolds and three asters, in a box fenced about with
little green pickets. There were well-dusted books on the tables, and
Francesca wanted to sit down immediately to The Charming Cora, reprinted
from The Girl's Own Paper. Salemina meantime had tempted fate by looking
under the bed, where she found the floor so exquisitely neat that she
patted it affectionately with her hand.

We had scarcely donned our dry clothing when the hotel proprietor sent a
jaunting-car for our drive to the seven-o'clock table d'hote dinner. We
carefully avoided our travelling companions that night, but learned the
next morning that the Frenchman had slept on four chairs, and rejected
the hotel coffee with the remark that it was not 'veritable'--a
criticism in which he was quite justified. Our comparative Englishman
had occupied a cot in a room where the tin bathtubs were kept. He was
writing to The Times at the moment of telling me his woes, and, without
seeing the letter, I could divine his impassioned advice never to travel
in the west of Ireland in rainy weather. He remarked (as if quoting from
his own communication) that the scenery was magnificent, but that there
was an entirely insufficient supply of hot water; that the waiters had
the appearance of being low comedians, and their service was of the
character one might expect from that description; that he had been
talking before breakfast with a German gentleman, who had sat on a
wall opposite the village of Dugort, in the island of Achill, from six
o'clock in the morning until nine, and in that time he had seen coming
out of an Irish hut three geese, eight goslings, six hens, fifteen
chickens, two pigs, two cows, two barefooted girls, the master of the
house leading a horse, three small children carrying cloth bags filled
with school-books, and finally a strapping mother leading a donkey
loaded with peat-baskets; that all this poverty and ignorance and
indolence and filth was spoiling his holiday; and finally, that if he
should be as greatly disappointed in the fishing as he had been in the
hotel accommodations--here we almost fainted from suspense--he should be
obliged to go home! And not only that, but he should feel it his duty to
warn others of what they might expect.

"Perhaps you are justified," said Francesca sympathetically. "People who
are used to the dry, sunny climate and the clear atmosphere of London
ought not to expo