te at least as usefully, being the "pleasaunce"
of the people for miles around, who come here freely to walk and drive.

It stretches for miles along the Nore, and is crowned by a gloriously
wooded hill nearly a thousand feet in height. The late Colonel Tighe, a
most accomplished man, and a passionate lover of trees, made it a kind
of private Kew Gardens. He planted long avenues of the rarest and finest
trees, araucarias, Scotch firs, oaks, beeches, cedars of Lebanon; laid
out miles of the most varied and delightful drives, and built the most
extensive conservatories in Ireland.

The turfed and terraced walks among those conservatories are
indescribably lovely, and the whole place to-day was vocal with
innumerable birds. Picturesque little cottages and arbours are to be
found in unexpected nooks all through the woodlands, each commanding
some green vista of forest aisles, or some wide view of hill and
champaign, enlivened by the winding river. From one of those to-day we
looked out over a landscape to which Turner alone or Claude could have
done justice, the river, spanned by a fine bridge, in the middle
distance, and all the region wooded as in the days of which Edmund
Spenser sings, when Ireland

"Flourished in fame,
Of wealth and goodnesse far above the rest
Of all that bears the British Islands' name."

Over the whole place broods an indefinable charm. You feel that this was
the home at once and the work of a refined and thoughtful spirit. And so
indeed it was. Here for the greater part of the current century the
owner lived, making the development of the estate and of this demesne
his constant care and chief pleasure. And here still lives his widow,
with whom we took tea in a stately quiet drawing-room. Lady Louisa Tighe
was in Brussels with her mother, the Duchess of Richmond, on the eve of
Waterloo. She was a child then of ten years old, and her mother bade
them bring her down into the historic ball-room before the Duke of
Wellington left it. The duke took up his sword. "Let Louisa buckle it
for you," said her mother, and when the little girl had girded it on,
the great captain stooped, took her up in his arms, and kissed her. "One
never knows what may happen, child," he said good-naturedly; and taking
his small gold watch out of his fob, he bade her keep it for him.

She keeps it still. For more than sixty years it has measured out in
this beautiful Irish home the hours of a li