"Don't look him up, darling," pleaded Francesca. "You are so much
our superior now that we positively must protect you from all
elevating influences."

"I won't insist on the Round Towers," smiled Salemina, "and I think
Penelope's idea a delightful one; we might add to it a sort of
literary pilgrimage to the homes and haunts of Ireland's famous
writers."

"I didn't know that she had any," interrupted Francesca.

This is a favourite method of conversation with that spoiled young
person; it seems to appeal to her in three different ways: she
likes to belittle herself, she likes to shock Salemina, and she
likes to have information given her on the spot in some succinct,
portable, convenient form.

"Oh," she continued apologetically, "of course there are Dean Swift
and Thomas Moore and Charles Lever."

"And," I added "certain minor authors named Goldsmith, Sterne,
Steele, and Samuel Lover."

"And Bishop Berkeley, and Brinsley Sheridan, and Maria Edgeworth,
and Father Prout," continued Salemina, "and certain great speech-
makers like Burke and Grattan and Curran; and how delightful to
visit all the places connected with Stella and Vanessa, and the spot
where Spenser wrote the Faerie Queene."