the idea, because the more we compared them the more impossible it
was to decide which was the dirtiest. There were no locks on the
doors. "And sure what matther for that, Miss? Nobody has a right
(i.e. business) to be comin' in here but meself," said the aged
woman who showed us to our rooms.



Chapter VIII. Romance and reality.

'But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.'
Charles Wolfe.

At midnight I heard a faint tap at my door, and Francesca walked in,
her eyes wide and bright, her cheeks flushed, her long, dark braid
of hair hanging over her black travelling cloak. I laughed as I saw
her, she looked so like Sir Patrick Spens in the ballad play at
Pettybaw,--a memorable occasion when Ronald Macdonald caught her
acting that tragic role in his ministerial gown, the very day that
Himself came from Paris to marry me in Pettybaw, dear little
Pettybaw!

"I came in to find out if your bed is as bad as mine, but I see you
have not slept in it," she whispered.

"I was just coming in to see if yours could be any worse," I
replied. "Do you mean to say that you have tried it, courageous
girl? I blew out my candle, and then, after an interval in which to
forget, sat down on the outside as a preliminary; but the moon rose