Nobody shall have our Salemina unless he is worthy, but how I should
like to see her life enriched and crowned! How I should enjoy
having her dear little overworn second fiddle taken from her by main
force, and a beautiful first violin, or even the baton for leading
an orchestra, put into her unselfish hands!
And so good-bye and 'good luck to ye, Cork, and your pepper-box
steeple,' for we leave you to-morrow!
Chapter XI. 'The rale thing.'
'Her ancestors were kings before Moses was born,
Her mother descended from great Grana Uaile.'
Charles Lever.
Knockarney House, Lough Lein.
We are in the province of Munster, the kingdom of Kerry, the town of
Ballyfuchsia, and the house of Mrs. Mullarkey. Knockarney House is
not her name for it; I made it myself. Killarney is church of the
sloe-trees; and as kill is church, the 'onderhanded manin'' of
'arney' must be something about sloes; then, since knock means hill,
Knockarney should be hill of the sloe-trees.
I have not lost the memory of Jenny Geddes and Tam o' the Cowgate,
but Penelope O'Connor, daughter of the king of Connaught, is more
frequently present in my dreams. I have by no means forgotten that
there was a time when I was not Irish, but for the moment I am of
the turf, turfy. Francesca is really as much in love with Ireland
as I, only, since she has in her heart a certain tender string
pulling her all the while to the land of the heather, she naturally
avoids comparisons.
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