-buyers in Ireland; but her mind was fixed
upon Kills and Ballies. On asking our jarvey the meaning of Bally as
a prefix, he answered reflectively: "I don't think there's annything
onderhanded in the manin', melady; I think it means BALLY jist."

The name of the place where we did go shall never be divulged, lest a
curious public follow in our footsteps; and if perchance it have not
our youth, vigour, and appetite for adventure, it might die there in the
principal hotel, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. The house is said to be
three hundred and seventy-five years old, but we are convinced that this
is a wicked understatement of its antiquity. It must have been built
since the Deluge, else it would at least have had one general spring
cleaning in the course of its existence. Cromwell had been there too,
and in the confusion of his departure they must have forgotten to sweep
under the beds. We entered our rooms at ten in the evening, having
dismissed our car, knowing well that there was no other place to stop
the night. We gave the jarvey twice his fare to avoid altercation,
'but divil a penny less would he take,' although it was he who had
recommended the place as a cosy hotel. "It looks like a small little
house, melady, but 'tis large inside, and it has a power o' beds in it."
We each generously insisted on taking the dirtiest bedroom (they had
both been last occupied by the Cromwellian soldiers, we agreed), but
relinquished the idea, because the more we compared them the more
impossible it was to decide which was the dirtiest. There were no locks
on the doors. "And sure what matther for that, Miss? Nobody has a right
(i.e. business) to be comin' in here but meself," said the aged woman
who showed us to our rooms.

Chapter VIII. Romance and reality.

'But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.'
Charles Wolfe.

At midnight I heard a faint tap at my door, and Francesca walked in, her
eyes wide and bright, her cheeks flushed, her long, dark braid of hair
hanging over her black travelling cloak. I laughed as I saw her, she
looked so like Sir Patrick Spens in the ballad play at Pettybaw,--a
memorable occasion when Ronald Macdonald caught her acting that tragic
role in his ministerial gown, the very day that Himself came from Paris
to marry me in Pettybaw, dear little Pettybaw!

"I came in to find out if your bed is as bad as mine, but I see y