TWO SUNDAY AFTERNOONS 

 I 



It was Sunday afternoon, and the swards of St. 

 Stephen's Green, Dubhn, were blotted and littered 

 with hot humanity. Peter Street, Patrick's Close, 

 and the dingy labyrinth that lies between the two 

 cathedrals, had sent forth contingents from their teem- 

 ing population, leaving still an ample residue to fill 

 the windows with lolling forms and jeering faces, as 

 the churchgoers passed below. The soft grass of 

 May was bruised by supine and graceless figures, 

 unshaven cheeks were laid on it, and tobacco and 

 whisky were breathed by sleeping lips into its mystery 

 of youth and gi*eenness. Above them the hawthorn 

 trees trailed branches embroidered to the tip with 

 cream and pink, children played shrilly about the 

 fountains, with curses, laughter, tears and guile, 

 happy beyond all comprehension, unhampered in 

 their games by sense of honour, truth or cleanliness. 

 The bells of trams made a ceaseless jangle along the 

 sides of St. Stephen's Green, tame wildfowl on the 

 lake uttered strange cries as family parties fed them 

 with buns ; everything human proclaimed that it was 

 Sunday and that the weather was hot ; the obviously 

 divine grass and hawthorn said but one word, and that 

 was " May." 



At the head of the lake, where water sped and 

 splashed down shelves of gi-ey limestone, a quiet path 

 wound among slopes and shrubberies; where it was 

 most secluded a laburnum tree drooped above a bench, 



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