tess asked me after
a while if I would like to shave myself before dinner. I told her I
would, so she got me some water in the potato-dish and put it on a
chair; then her sister got me a little piece of broken
looking-glass and put it on a nail near the door, where there was
some light. I set to work, and as I stood with my back to the people
I could catch a score of eyes in the glass, watching me intently.
'That is a great improvement to you now,' said the host, when I had
done; 'and whenever you want a beard, God bless you, you'll have a
thick one surely.'

When I was coming down in the evening from the ridge of the island,
where I spent much of my time looking at the richness of the
Atlantic on one side and the sad or shining greys of Dingle Bay on
the other, I was joined by two young women and we walked back
together. Just outside the village we met an old women who stopped
and laughed at us. 'Well, aren't you in good fortune this night,
stranger,' she said, 'to be walking up and down in the company of
women?'

'I am surely,' I answered; 'isn't that the best thing to be doing
in the whole world?'

At our own door I saw the little hostess sweeping the floor, so I
went down for a moment to the gable of the cottage, and looked out
over the roofs of the little village to the sound, where the tide
was running with extraordinary force. In a few minutes the little
hostess came down and stood beside me--she thought I should not be
left by myself when I had been driven away by the dust--and I asked
her many questions about the names and relationships of the people
that I am beginning to know.

Afterwards, when many of the people had come together in the
kitchen, the men told me about their lobster-pots that are brought
from Southampton, and cost half-a-crown each. 'In good weather,'
said the man who was talking to me, 'they will often last for a
quarter; but if storms come up on them they will sometimes break up
in a week or two. Still and all, it's a good trade; and we do sell
lobsters and crayfish every week in the season to a boat from
England or a boat from France that does come in here, as you'll
maybe see before you go.'

I told them that I had often been in France, and one of the boys
began counting up the numerals in French to show what he had learnt
from their buyers. A little later, when the talk was beginning to
flag, I turned to a young man near me--the best fiddler, I was
told, on the island--and asked