to Lough Lein as did we, too early for the crowd of sightseers; but
when the 'long light shakes across the lakes,' the blackest arts of the
tourist (and they are as black as they are many) cannot break the spell.
Sitting on one of these hillsides, we heard a bugle-call taken up and
repeated in delicate, ethereal echoes,--sweet enough, indeed, to be
worthy of the fairy buglers who are supposed to pass the sound along
their lines from crag to crag, until it faints and dies in silence. And
then came the 'Lament for Owen Roe O'Neil.' We were thrilled to the
very heart with the sorrowful strains; and when we issued from our leafy
covert, and rounded the point of rocks from which the sound came,
we found a fat man in uniform playing the bugle. 'Blank's Tours' was
embroidered on his cap, and I have no doubt that he is a good husband
and father, even a good citizen, but he is a blight upon the landscape,
and fancy cannot breathe in his presence. The typical tourist should be
encouraged within bounds, both because he is of some benefit to Ireland,
and because Ireland is of inestimable benefit to him; but he should
not be allowed to jeer and laugh at the legends (the gentle smile of
sophisticated unbelief, with its twinkle of amusement, is unknown to and
for ever beyond him); and above all, he should never be allowed to carry
or to play on a concertina, for this is the unpardonable sin.

We had an adventure yesterday. We were to dine at eight o'clock at
Balkilly Castle, where Dr. La Touche is staying the week-end with Lord
and Lady Killbally. We had been spending an hour or two after tea in
writing an Irish letter, and were a bit late in dressing. These letters,
written in the vernacular, are a favourite diversion of ours when
visiting in foreign lands; and they are very easily done when once you
have caught the idioms, for you can always supplement your slender store
of words and expressions with choice selections from native authors.

What Francesca and I wore to the Castle dinner is, alas! no longer of
any consequence to the community at large. In the mysterious purposes
of that third volume which we seem to be living in Ireland, Francesca's
beauty and mine, her hats and frocks as well as mine, are all reduced to
the background; but Salemina's toilet had cost us some thought. When she
first issued from the discreet and decorous fastnesses of Salem society,
she had never donned any dinner dress that was not as high at the throa