Clement did recollect her now. But as his
recollection of Mrs. Hutchins was not an
especially favourable one, and as any reminiscence
of the time she alluded to was fraught
with many bitter regrets in his mind, he
merely gave her a brief though civil "good
day," and ran quickly down the stairs.

The woman stood on the landing looking
after him.

"Highty tighty!" she muttered. "Come-downs
in the world don't seem to meeken some
folks. A nasty stuck-up fellow, as was glad
enough to come to my house once upon a
time, too. An' p'raps he'd have been glad
to be a bit civiller now, if he'd have knowed
all."

Mrs. Hutchins screwed her mouth into a
cunning smile, and nodded her head. The
good lady's old thirst for information had not
left her, it appeared; for on her way out of
the house she encountered the slatternly
servant, and, assuming an insinuating fascination
of manner, proceeded to cross-question her
keenly. The girl was disposed to be communicative
enough on the subject of her own
hardships and wrongs, but was able to say very
little regarding Clement. This much, however,
Mrs. Hutchins drew from her; that a young
gentleman named Charlewood lodged in the
house, that he kept late hours, gave little
trouble, and was, in the maid-of-all-work's
opinion, "a rig'lar wild 'un."

"Lord bless me!" said Mrs. Hutchins,
raising her hands and eyes in astonishment.
"Well, live and learn, to be sure; but who'd
ever ha' thought as my—ahem!—my young
friend 'ud 'av turned out like that. I knowed
him intimate in 'appier times, my dear, when
the bloom was on his early brow, but now
Otheller's occkypation's gone, and no
mistake!"

"Lor!" said the slatternly servant.

"Yes," continued Mrs. Hutchins, warming
into romance; "it's been a pretty considerable
come-down for the lot of 'em. I was,
I may say, 'and and glove with the famaly,
and with the young lady as he kep' comp'ny
with. But now things is changed. She
wouldn't look at him now, Lord bless you, not
she."

"More shame for her, if she was his sweetheart
oncet," said the dirty servant, with a
spark of right womanly sympathy with
misfortune, and respect for true love illumining her
coarse face.

"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Hutchins,
mysteriously, "you don't know all, my dear. There's
famaly reasons as I could reveal, but my lips is
sealed aromatically. So he lives here, quite by
hisself, eh?"

"Mr. Charlewood do. Quite by hisself."

"I wonder what's got the others. Well,
they was always a uppish lot. Sprung out of
nothink, and returned back again to oblivium.
Good morning, my dear."

Mrs. Hutchins betook herself along some
streets at the back of Drury-lane, marvelling
much at her recent encounter with young
Charlewood, and still more at the account
given of him by the lodging-house servant.

           AN IRISH RUN.

EVERY year I make a point of running over
to some part or other of "the old country." I
do so from conscientious motives, thinking it
right to spend the very little I can put aside
for "touring" in the poorest and least-visited
portion of these islands. For the same reason,
and also because it is good, strong, and serviceable,
as well as cheap, I wear Irish frieze, and
clothe my boys in it. I am Irish by blood; though
I do not think this fact influences my practice,
for I regret to say that I can scarcely ever
persuade any born Irishman to do as I do. "What's
the use," says he whom I try to tempt with
samples of tweeds and double-milled beavers
—"what's the use, till the land laws are set
right?" or "till that monstrous abuse, the
Established Church, is pulled down?" or, if he
is of the other way of thinking, "so long as
these rascally agitating priests have it all their
own way, and are petted by successive governments,
while honest men are left in the lurch?"
However, as it seems to me that I, and my sons
too, will very probably have gone beyond the
need of coats and summer trips before those
questions are settled, I go on as I began,
reminding my friends and countrymen that the
Flemings did not sit down and cease manufacturing
because a good many important matters,
such as feudalism municipal rights and, afterwards,
religion, were being fiercely battled for
among them.

This is an exceptional year. Everybody
is at Paris; but still I could not help
wondering that at place after place along the
west coast nobody seemed on the move but
priests, except, indeed, four "distinguished
foreigners," Frenchmen, who had preceded me
by some days, and of whose names the different
hotel-keepers seemed immensely proud. This
dearth of visitors more than accounts for some
short-comings which are justly (among the many
which are unjustly) laid to the charge of Irish
inns. A fine hotel is built; everything is
prepared in the best style for the guests, who
do not come in remunerative numbers. The
innkeeper falls back on farming; and when
his window-lines break, he supplies their place
by propping up the window with a bit of
stick; when his plated forks wear out, he
replaces them with iron; when his salt-spoons
are lost, he does not replace them at all. This,
of course, is not true of Killarney and a few
other favoured spots, though even there the
rush of tourists is never great enough to make
the hotel proprietors feel quite comfortable. In
such quarters there are (as there are in all the
large Irish towns) hotels second to none in
Europe. It is in places somewhat off the very
few popular routes that the contrast with
England is unfavourably seen. Inns have declined