BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 141 



caused her to lay it longingly down and ask for an 

 umbrella — " A very bad umbrella," she explained ; 



*' the worst kind you have got " 



Economy is a virtue that the Welsh do not 

 encourage in the alien. The shopwoman did not 

 for some time permit herself to believe that what 

 Miss O'Flannigan desired was primarily cheapness, 

 and secondarily extent, and not silver chains, and 

 ouches, and greyhounds' heads carved in the 

 purest bone. Like many another of her race 

 and calling, she was fated to find us commercial 

 disappointments of the most ignoble kind, and 

 forth, with whatever reluctance, came eventually 

 the lustrous alpaca, the gingham that even in 

 youth looks grey and stout, the massive black 

 handle, the gluey fragrance. A subordinate in 

 goloshes, worn over white stockings, brought them 

 in relays from some remote parts of the house, — 

 some apparently from a period of hibernating in a 

 feather-bed, judging by the fragments of down 

 that adhered both to them and to their bearer. 

 With the largest of the ginghams, at one-and-nine, 



