CHAPTEE Vll

Strange predicaments of the peasantry.—Excursion to
Castle Connell, and tlie Falls of the Shannon.—The Donkey
with many owners.—Irish abstinence.

Tuesday,—It often happens that when peasant
girls come into service in a gentleman's family,
direct from the wretched hovels in which they
have been brought up, in a wild part of the
country, they are surprised and perplexed by
all they see : the commonest things are new and
astonishing to their simple gaze. As the dwel¬
lings of the Irish poor are never more than one
story high, what excites their perplexity, and
often their fears, more than any thing else, is, of
course, a staircase.

A friend told me she once took a very inte¬
resting orphan girl from a cabin, or rather farm-