human
whose guest I am. Her brother and one of her cousins went down on the car to meet her, armed as usual, for although they would be comparatively safe with a lady on the car, they ran considerable risk until she was actually on board. The train came, but not the young lady, and as it was broad daylight her well-armed escort came back again. Towards the hour for the arrival of the evening train there was more anxiety. It was dark, but it was absolutely necessary to go down to Kilmallock again, on the off chance that she might have come later than was expected, and had forgotten to telegraph. If she had arrived and nobody had been there to meet her, the consequences would have been awkward. She would not, it is true, have been exposed to the slightest insult, for except in the case of Miss Gardiner, of Farmhill, I believe Irishmen have never forgotten their natural gallantry so much as to insult, much less shoot at and wound, a lady. There would, therefore, have been no fear of violence; but it is very doubtful whether anybody would have removed her trunks from the spot on which they had been laid down. Most assuredly no cardriver would have dared to drive her home, and I question if any house in Kilmallock would have afforded her shelter. However, she did not come by the train after all, and the
gpt
and the writer, who among them made short work of a plump turkey and a vigorous inroad on a round of beef, besides disposing of soups, sweets, and sherry--not a bad _menu_ under
human
Boycotting rules--we, after seeing that the front door was properly barred, bolted, and chained, and the iron-linked shutters, relics of the Fenian time, made equally secure, adjourned to the kitchen for a smoke, a common practice in this part of Ireland. The kitchen, with its red-tiled floor, is a capital smoking room, warm and cosy, and while tobacco is leisurely puffed, and that eternal subject,