in Rutland Square, where the
distinguished visitors were to meet the liberated Lord Mayor, with Mr.
Dwyer Gray, and other local celebrities. A friendly citizen let us perch
on his outside car.

The procession presently came in sight, and a grand show it made--not of
the strictly popular and political sort, for it was made up of guilds
and other organised bodies on foot and on horseback, marching in
companies--but imposing by reason of its numbers, and of the flaring
torches. Of these there were not so many as there should have been to do
justice to the procession. The crowd cheered from time to time, with
that curious Irish cheer which it is often difficult to distinguish from
groaning, but the only explosive and uproarious greeting given to the
visitors in our neighbourhood came from a member of "the devout female
sex," a young lady who stood up between two friends on the top of a car
very near us, and imperilled both her equilibrium and theirs by wildly
waving her hand-kerchief in the air, and crying out at the top of a
somewhat husky voice, "Three cheers for Mecklenburg Street! Three
cheers for Mecklenburg Street!"

This made the crowd very hilarious, but as Lord Ernest's local knowledge
did not enable him to enlighten me as to the connection between
Mecklenburg Street and the liberation of Ireland, I must leave the
mystery of their mirth unsolved till a more convenient season.

At Rutland Square the crowd was tightly packed, but perfectly
well-behaved, and the guests were enthusiastically cheered. But even
before they had entered the house of Mr. Walker it began to break up,
and long files of people wended their way to see "the carriages"
hastening with their lovely freight to the Castle. Thither Lord Ernest
has just gone, arrayed in a captivating Court costume of black velvet,
with cut-steel buttons, sword, and buckles--just the dress in which
Washington used to receive his guests at the White House, and in which
Senator Seward, I remember, insisted in 1860 on getting himself
presented by Mr. Dallas to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.

CHAPTER II.

SION HOUSE, COUNTY TYRONE, _Feb. 3d._--Hearing nothing from Mr. Davitt
yesterday, I gave up the idea of attending the Ripon-Morley meeting last
night. As I have come to Ireland to hear what people living in Ireland
have to say about Irish affairs, I see no particular advantage in
listening to imported eloquence on the subject, even from so clever a
man