Part Second--Munster.



Chapter VII. A tour and a detour.

'"An' there," sez I to meself, "we're goin' wherever we go,
But where we'll be whin we git there it's never a know
I'll know."'
Jane Barlow.

We had planned to go direct from Dublin to Valencia Island, where
there is not, I am told, 'one dhry step 'twixt your fut an' the
States'; but we thought it too tiring a journey for Benella, and
arranged for a little visit to Cork first. We nearly missed the
train owing to the late arrival of Salemina at the Kingsbridge
station. She had been buying malted milk, Mellin's Food, an alcohol
lamp, a tin cup, and getting all the doctor's prescriptions renewed.

We intended, too, to go second or third class now an then, in order
to study the humours of the natives, but of course we went 'first'
on this occasion on account of Benella. I told her that we could
not follow British usage and call her by her surname. Dusenberry
was too long and too--well, too extraordinary for daily use abroad.

"P'r'aps it is," she assented meekly; "and still, Mis' Beresford,
when a man's name is Dusenberry, you can't hardly blame him for
wanting his child to be called by it, can you?"