hat the poor Irishman dothe.'

This certificate of character from an 'undertaker' of the sixteenth
century certainly speaks volumes for Irish amiability and hospitality,
since it was given at a time when grievances were as real as plenty;
when unutterable resentment must have been rankling in many minds; and
when those traditions were growing which have coloured the whole texture
of Irish thought, until, with the poor and unlettered, to be 'agin the
government' is an inherited instinct, to be obliterated only by time.

We supplement Mrs. Mullarkey's helter-skelter meals with frequent
luncheons and dinners with our new friends, who send us home on our
jaunting-car laden with flowers, fruit, even with jellies and jams. Lady
Killbally forces us to take three cups of tea and a half-dozen marmalade
sandwiches whenever we go to the Castle; for I apologised for our
appetites, one day, by confessing that we had lunched somewhat frugally,
the meal being sweetened, however, by Molly's explanation that there was
a fresh sole in the house, but she thought she would not inthrude on it
before dinner!

We asked, on our arrival at Knockarney House, if we might breakfast at
a regular hour,--say eight thirty. Mrs. Mullarkey agreed, with
that suavity which is, after her untidiness, her distinguishing
characteristic; but notwithstanding this arrangement we break our fast
sometimes at nine forty, sometimes at nine twenty, sometimes at nine,
but never earlier. In order to achieve this much, we are obliged to
rise early and make a combined attack on the executive and culinary
departments. One morning I opened the door leading from the hall into
the back part of the establishment, but closed it hastily, having
interrupted the toilets of three young children, whose existence I had
never suspected, and of Mr. Mullarkey, whom I had thought dead for many
years. Each child had donned one article of clothing, and was apparently
searching for the mate to it, whatever it chanced to be. Mrs. Mullarkey
was fully clothed, and was about to administer correction to one of the
children who, unhappily for him, was not. I retired to my apartment to
report progress, but did not describe the scene minutely, nor mention
the fact that I had seen Salemina's ivory-backed hairbrush put to
excellent if somewhat unusual and unaccustomed service.

Each party in the house eats in solitary splendour, like the MacDermott,
Prince of Coolavin. That royal personage of Cou