ke these beyond the western main,
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.'
Oliver Goldsmith.

It is almost over, our Irish holiday, so full of delicious, fruitful
experiences; of pleasures we have made and shared, and of other people's
miseries and hardships we could not relieve. Almost over! Soon we shall
be in Dublin, and then on to London to meet Francesca's father; soon be
deciding whether she will be married at the house of their friend the
American ambassador, or in her own country, where she has really had no
home since the death of her mother.

The ceremony over, Mr. Monroe will start again for Cairo or
Constantinople, Stockholm or St. Petersburg; for he is of late years
a determined wanderer, whose fatherly affection is chiefly shown
in liberal allowances, in pride of his daughter's beauty and many
conquests, in conscientious letter-writing, and in frequent calls
upon her between his long journeys. It is because of these paternal
predilections that we are so glad Francesca's heart has resisted all
the shot and shell directed against it from the batteries of a dozen
gay worldlings and yielded so quietly and so completely to Ronald
Macdonald's loyal and tender affection.

At tea-time day before yesterday, Salemina suggested that Francesca and
I find the heart of Aunt David's labyrinth, the which she had discovered
in a less than ten minutes' search that morning, leaving her Gaelic
primer behind her that we might bring it back as a proof of our success.
You have heard in Pearla's Celtic fairy tale the outcome of this little
expedition, and now know that Ronald Macdonald and Himself planned the
joyful surprise for us, and by means of Salemina's aid carried it out
triumphantly.

Ronald crossing to Ireland from Glasgow, and Himself from Liverpool,
had met in Dublin, and travelled post-haste to the Shamrock Inn in
Devorgilla, where they communicated with Salemina and begged her
assistance in their plot.

I was looking forward to my husband's arrival within a week, but Ronald
had said not a word of his intended visit; so that Salemina was properly
nervous lest some one of us should collapse out of sheer joy at the
unexpected meeting.

I have been both quietly and wildly happy many times in my life, but I
think yesterday was the most perfect day in all my chain of years. Not
that in this long separation I have be