to her development
than the confusion of Knockarney House.

Our windows are supported on decrepit tennis rackets and worn-out hearth
brushes; the blinds refuse to go up or down; the chairs have weak backs
or legs; the door knobs are disassociated from their handles. As for our
food, we have bacon and eggs, with coffee made, I should think, of brown
beans and liquorice, for breakfast; a bit of sloppy chicken, or fish and
potato, with custard pudding or stewed rhubarb, for dinner; and a cold
supper of--oh! anything that occurs to Molly at the last moment. Nothing
ever occurs either to Molly or Oonah at any previous moment, and in that
they are merely conforming to the universal habit. Last week, when we
were starting for Valencia Island, the Ballyfuchsia stationmaster
was absent at a funeral; meantime the engine had 'gone cold on the
engineer,' and the train could not leave till twelve minutes after the
usual time. We thought we must have consulted a wrong time-table, and
asked confirmation of a man who seemed to have some connection with the
railway. Goaded by his ignorance, I exclaimed, "Is it possible you don't
know the time the trains are going?"

"Begorra, how should I?" he answered. "Faix, the thrains don't always be
knowin' thimselves!"

The starting of the daily 'Mail Express' from Ballyfuchsia is a time
of great excitement and confusion, which on some occasions increases
to positive panic. The stationmaster, armed with a large dinner-bell,
stands on the platform, wearing an expression of anxiety ludicrously
unsuited to the situation. The supreme moment had really arrived some
time before, but he is waiting for Farmer Brodigan with his daughter
Kathleen, and the Widdy Sullivan, and a few other local worthies who are
a 'thrifle late on him.' Finally they come down the hill, and he paces
up and down the station ringing the bell and uttering the warning cry,
"This thrain never shtops! This thrain never shtops! This thrain never
shtops!"--giving one the idea that eternity, instead of Killarney,
must be the final destination of the passengers. The clock in the
Ballyfuchsia telegraph and post office ceases to go for twenty-four
hours at a time, and nobody heeds it, while the postman always has a few
moments' leisure to lay down his knapsack of letters and pitch quoits
with the Royal Irish Constabulary. However, punctuality is perhaps an
individual virtue more than an exclusively national one. I am not sure
that we Am