FROM LONDON TO NEW YORK. 239 



kiss. I expected this would be the one drop too 

 much, and that we should have a scene, and began to 

 regard myself in the light of an avenger of an insulted 

 Welsh beauty, when my heroine paused, and I be- 

 lieve actually deliberated whether or not to comply 

 before two spectators ! Certain it is that she yielded 

 the highwayman her hand, and bidding him a gentle 

 good-night in Welsh, smilingly and blushingly left 

 the car. "Ah," said the villain, "these Welsh girls 

 are capital ; I know them like a book, and have had 

 many a lark with them." 



At Holyhead I got another glimpse of the Welsh. 

 I had booked for Dublin, and having several hours on 

 my hands of a dark, threatening night before the de- 

 parture of the steamer, I sallied out in the old town, 

 tilted up against the side of the hill, in the most ad- 

 venturous spirit I could summon up, threading my 

 way through the dark, deserted streets, pausing for a 

 moment in front of a small house with closed doors 

 and closely-shuttered windows, where I heard sup- 

 pressed voices, the monotonous scraping of a fiddle, 

 and a lively shuffling of feet, and passing on finally 

 entered, drawn by the musical strains, a quaint old 

 place, where a blind harper seated in the corner of a 

 rude kind of coffee and sitting-room, was playing 

 on a harp. I liked the atmosphere of the place, so 

 primitive and wholesome, and was quite willing to 

 have my attention drawn off from the increasing 

 storm without, and from the bitter cup which I knew 

 the Irish sea was preparing for me. The harper 



