of the individual and given my true place in the general scheme of
the universe, and, in some subtle way that I can hardly explain, I

am more nearly related to all things good, beautiful, and true than
I was when I was wholly an artist, and therefore less a woman. The

bursting of the leaf-buds brings me a tender thought of the one dear
heart that gives me all its spring; and whenever I see the smile of

a child, a generous look, the flash of sympathy in an eye, it makes
me warm with swift remembrance of the one I love the best of all,

just 'as a lamplight will set a linnet singing for the sun.'
Love is doing the same thing for Francesca; for the smaller feelings

merge themselves in the larger ones, as little streams lose
themselves in oceans. Whenever we talk quietly together of that

strange, new, difficult life that she is going so bravely and so
joyously to meet, I know by her expression that Ronald's noble face,

a little shy, a little proud, but altogether adoring, serves her for
courage and for inspiration, and she feels that his hand is holding

hers across the distance, in a clasp that promises strength.
At five o'clock we longed to ring for hot water, but did not dare.

Even at six there was no sound of life in the cosy inn which we have
named The Cromwell Arms ('Mrs. Duddy, Manageress; Comfort,

Cleanliness, Courtesy; Night Porter; Cycling Shed'). From seven to
half-past we read pages and pages of delicious history and legend,

and decided to go from Cappoquin to Youghal by steamer, if we could
possibly reach the place of departure in time. At half-past seven

we pulled the bell energetically. Nothing happened, and we pulled
again and again, discovering at last that the connection between the

bell-rope and the bell-wire had long since disappeared, though it
had been more than once established with bits of twine, fishing-

line, and shoe laces. Francesca then went across the hall to
examine her methods of communication, and presently I heard a

welcome tinkle, and another, and another, followed in due season by
a cheerful voice, saying, "Don't desthroy it intirely, ma'am; I'll

be coming direckly." We ordered jugs of hot water, and were told
that it would be some time before it could be had, as ladies were

not in the habit of calling for it before nine in the morning, and
as the damper of the kitchen-range was out of order. Did we wish it

in a little canteen with whisky and a bit of lemon-peel, or were we
afther wantin' it in a jug? We replied promptly that it was not the

hour for toddy, but the hour for baths, with us, and the decrepit
and very sleepy night porterdeparted to wake the cook and build the

fire; advising me first, in a friendly way, to take the hearth brush
that was 'kapin' the windy up, and rap on the wall if I needed

annything more.' At eight o'clock we heard the porter's shuffling
step in the hall, followed by a howl and a polite objurgation. A

strange dog had passed the night under Francesca's bed, and the
porter was giving him what he called 'a good hand and fut

downstairs.' He had put down the hot water for this operation, and
on taking up the burden again we heard him exclaim: "Arrah! look at

that now! May the divil fly away with the excommunicated ould jug!"
It was past saving, the jug, and leaked so freely that one had to be

exceedingly nimble to put to use any of the smoky water in it.
"Thim fools o' turf do nothing but smoke on me," apologised the

venerable servitor, who then asked, "would we be pleased to order
breakquist." We were wise in our generation, and asked for nothing

but bacon, eggs, and tea; and after a smoky bath and a change of
raiment we seated at our repast in the coffee-room, feeling

wonderfully fresh and cheerful. By looking directly at each other
most of the time, and making experimental journeys from plate to

mouth, thus barring out any intimate knowledge of the tablecloth and
the waiter's linen, we managed to make a breakfast. Francesca is

enough to give any one a good appetite. Ronald Macdonald will be a
lucky fellow, I think, to begin his day by sitting opposite her, for

her eyes shine like those of a child, and one's gaze lingers fondly
on the cool freshness of her cheek. Breakfast over and the bill

settled, we speedily shook off as much of the dust of Mrs. Duddy's
hotel as could be shaken off, and departed on the most decrepit

sidecar that ever rolled on two wheels, being wished a safe journey
by a slatternly maid who stood in the doorway, by the wide Mrs.

Duddy herself, who realised in her capacious person the picturesque
Irish phrase, 'the full-of-the-door of a woman,' and by our friend

the head waiter, who leaned against Mrs. Duddy's ancestral pillars
in such a way that the morning sun shone full upon his costume and

revealed its weaknesses to our reluctant gaze.
The driver said it was eleven miles to Cappoquin, the guide-book

fourteen, but this difference of opinion, we find, is only the
difference between Irish and English miles, for which our driver had

an unspeakablecontempt, as of a vastlyinferior quality. He had,
on the other hand, a great respect for Mrs. Duddy and her

comfortable, cleanly, and courteousestablishment (as per
advertisement), and the warmest admiration for the village in which

she had appropriately located herself, a village which he alluded to
as 'wan of the natest towns in the ring of Ireland, for if ye made a

slip in the street of it, be the help of God ye were always sure to
fall into a public-house!'

"We had better not tell the full particulars of this journey to
Salemina," said Francesca prudently, as we rumbled along; "though,

oddly enough, if you remember, whenever any one speaks disparagingly
of Ireland, she always takes up cudgels in its behalf."

"Francesca, now that you are within three or four months of being
married, can you manage to keep a secret?"

"Yes," she whispered eagerly, squeezing my hand and inclining her
shoulder cosily to mine. "Yes, oh yes, and how it would raise my

spirits after a sleepless night!"
"When Salemina was eighteen she had a romance, and the hero of it

was the son of an Irish gentleman, an M.P., who was travelling in
America, or living there for a few years,--I can't remember which.

He was nothing more than a lad, less than twenty-one years old, but
he was very much in love with Salemina. How far her feelings were

involved I never knew, but she felt that she could not promise to
marry him. Her mother was an invalid, and her father a delightful,

scholarly, autocratic, selfish old gentleman, who ruled his
household with a rod of iron. Salemina coddled and nursed them both

during all her young life; indeed, little as she realised it, she
never had any separate existence or individuality until they both

died, when she was thirty-one or two years old."
"And what became of the young Irishman? Was he faithful to his

first love, or did he marry?"
"He married, many years afterward, and that was the time I first

heard the story. His marriage took place in Dublin, on the very
day, I believe, that Salemina's father was buried; for Fate has the

most relentless way of arranging these coincidences. I don't
remember his name, and I don't know where he lives or what has

become of him. I imagine the romance has been dead and buried in
rose-leaves for years; Salemina never has spoken of it to me, but it

would account for her sentimentalchampionship of Ireland."
Chapter IX. The light of other days.

'Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me.'

Thomas Moore.
If you want to fall head over ears in love with Ireland at the very

first sight of her charms, take, as we did, the steamer from
Cappoquin to Youghal, and float down the vale of the Blackwater-

'Swift Awniduff, which of the Englishman
Is cal' de Blackwater.'

The shores of this Irish Rhine are so lovely that the sail on a
sunny day is one of unequalled charm. Behind us the mountains

ranged themselves in a mysteriousmelancholybackground; ahead the
river wended its way southward in and out, in and out, through rocky

cliffs and well-wooded shores.
The first tributarystream that we met was the little Finisk, on the

higher banks of which is Affane House. The lands of Affane are said
to have been given by one of the FitzGeralds to Sir Walter Raleigh

for a breakfast, a very high price to pay for bacon and eggs, and it
was here that he planted the first cherry-tree in Ireland, bringing