dently inquiring the
guard's opinion, he said it was not a comfortable place for an invalid
lady, and that Mallow was much more the thing. At Limerick Junction,
then, we all alighted, and in the ten minutes' wait saw Benella escorted
up the hotel stairway by a sympathetic head waiter.

Detached from Salemina's fostering care and prudent espionage,
separated, above all, from the depressing Miss Dusenberry, we planned
every conceivable folly in the way of guidebook expeditions. The
exhilarating sense of being married, and therefore properly equipped to
undertake any sort of excursion with perfect propriety, gave added zest
to the affair in my eyes. Sleeping at Cork in an Imperial Hotel was far
too usual a proceeding,--we scorned it. As the very apex of boldness and
reckless defiance of common-sense, we let our heavy luggage go on to the
capital of Munster, and, taking our handbags, entered a railway carriage
standing on a side track, and were speedily on our way,--we knew not
whither, and cared less. We discovered all too soon that we were going
to Waterford, the Star of the Suir,--

'The gentle Shure, that making way
By sweet Clonmell, adorns rich Waterford';

and we were charmed at first sight with its quaint bridge spanning the
silvery river. It was only five o'clock, and we walked about the fine
old ninth-century town, called by the Cavaliers the Urbs Intacta,
because it was the one place in Ireland which successfully resisted the
all-conquering Cromwell. Francesca sent a telegram at once to

MISS PEABODY AND MAID, Great Southern Hotel, Limerick Junction.

Came to Waterford instead Cork. Strongbow landed here 1771,
defeating Danes and Irish. Youghal to-morrow, pronounced Yawl. Address,
Green Park, Miss Murphy's. How's Derelict?

FRANELOPE.

It was absurd, of course, but an absurdity that can be achieved at the
cost of eighteen-pence is well worth the money.

Nobody but a Baedeker or a Murray could write an account of our doings
the next two days. Feeling that we might at any hour be recalled to
Benella's bedside, we took a childlike pleasure in crowding as much as
possible into the time. This zeal was responsible for our leaving the
Urbs Intacta, and pushing on to pass the night in something smaller and
more idyllic.

I dissuaded Francesca from seeking a lodging in Ballybricken by
informing her that it was the heart of the bacon industry, and the home
of the best-known body of pig