BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



ghost, lingering among broken furniture and pot- 

 sherds, to sadden the eyes of such as can dis- 

 cern it. 



Ireland seemed a long way off, while we lunched 

 largely and languidly on fruit and cream, and 

 wondered how we were going to ride through four 

 counties in heat of this kind. A sense of inade- 

 quacy grew upon us like a slight indigestion, or, 

 perhaps, it came to us in that guise, and the fussy 

 clatter of ponies' hoofs in the yard below had a ring 

 in it of the inexorable. Miss O'Flannigan sharp- 

 ened a pencil and began to make notes, evidently 

 to restore her moral tone, — notes about Welshpool, 

 she said, antiquities, and such things ; but as sub- 

 sequently these proved to consist of the entry, 

 "Saturday, June lo, 'Black and White,' lunch. 

 Academy, headache, tea, tried on, &c.," with a 

 bulbous profile of the ironmonger, her method of 

 working back to ancient history must have been 

 mystic and gradual. 



While we thus sat dubious of ourselves and 

 all things, expecting to hear that the chemist and 



