listen to anywhere else in this degenerate age, which has mostly
forgotten how to converse in learning to chat; and any one who goes
to the Spring Show at Ball's Bridge, or to the Punchestown or
Leopardstown races, or to the Dublin horse show, will have to
confess that the Irishwomen can dispute the palm with any nation.

'Light on their feet now they passed me and sped,
Give you me word, give you me word,
Every girl wid a turn o' the head
Just like a bird, just like a bird;
And the lashes so thick round their beautiful eyes
Shinin' to tell you it's fair time o' day wid them,
Back in me heart wid a kind of surprise,
I think how the Irish girls has the way wid them!'

Their charm is made up of beautiful eyes and lashes, lustre of hair,
poise of head, shapeliness of form, vivacity and coquetry; and there
is a matchless grace in the way they wear the 'whatever,' be it the
chiffons of the fashionable dame, or the shawl of the country
colleen, who can draw the two corners of that faded article of
apparel shyly over her lips and look out from under it with a pair
of luminous grey eyes in a manner that is fairly 'disthractin'.'

Yesterday was a red-letter day, for I dined in the evening at Dublin
Castle, and Francesca was bidden to the concert in the Throne Room
afterwards. It was a brilliant scene when the assembled guests
awaited their host and hostess, the shaded lights bringing out the
satins and velvets, pearls and diamonds, uniforms, orders, and
medals. Suddenly the hum of voices ceased as one of the aides-de-
camp who preceded the vice-regal party announced 'their