proud Castilian officers and their stately ladies--velvets and
brocades, stiff with woven jewels and broideries of gold, with which
she went bravely dressed for the rest of her life. And the Spanish
Dons and Donnas, what did they do, robbed of their splendid apparel?
Ah, they went where they did not need it any more--down, down into
still, dark ocean-caves, where they reposed on beds of silver sand,
with the long sea-weed wrapping itself about them.

But I am not getting on with that legend of Howth Castle.

In the height of the fame and power of Grace O'Malley, when her rude
bands were the terror of Connaught and the islands of that coast, and
her ships the scourge of the Irish seas, she resolved to pay a visit to
the court of Elizabeth. She went almost as a sovereign princess, and
was royally received and entertained; for the politic English Queen was
only too willing, I am afraid, to close her ears against stories of the
cruelty and lawlessness of so useful a subject.

The warlike Grace made a decided sensation at court. In her strange,
rich, half martial dress, and always wearing some sort of deadly
weapon, she strode about like a terrible giantess among the Queen's
laughing dames, awing them into momentary silence; and even the gay
wits, pert young poets, and pages, shrank abashed from her haughty,
flashing looks.

"Gra' mercy!" whispered one, as she passed, "she hath daggers in her
eyes, as well as in her girdle."

"Ay, and pistols in her voice," said a saucy page, who served at the
Queen's table; "when she saith 'Sirrah!' I have ever a mind to drop
upon my knees and beg for my life."

But Grace O'Malley soon tired of the stately gayeties of the court.
She curled her scornful lip at the safe and easy way of hunting in the
royal parks--calling it "child's play." She laughed at their formal
balls and feasts; and when the Queen, especially to please her, led off
the court dance, the solemn, but graceful minuet, played the
harpsichord with her own royal hands, and sung madrigals, and read
Latin verses of her own composition, Grace only yawned, and said: "I
wonder your Majesty should throuble yourself with things of this sort
at all. Sure in Ireland, we have people to do the likes for us, and
save us the worriment."

Once, on the Queen having expressed some curiosity in regard to the
Irish national dances, Grace made sign to her harper, a wild-eyed,
white-haired, long-bearded old gentleman, who struck up