observed, suddenly ceased; the girls looked down and tittered—and the old woman addressed me sans ceremonie, and in a language I now heard for the first time.     

       Supposing that some one among the number must understand English, I explained with all possible politeness the cause of my intrusion on this little harmonic society. The old woman looked up in my face and shook her head; I thought contemptuously—while the young ones, stifling their smiles, exchanged looks of compassion doubtlessly at my ignorance of their language.     

       “So many languages a man knows,” said Charles V., “so many times is he a man,” and it is certain I never felt myself less invested with the dignity of one, than while I stood twirling my stick, and “biding the encounter of the eyes,” and smiles of these “spinners in the sun.” Here you will say was prejudice opposed to prejudice with a vengeance; but I comforted myself with the idea that the natives of Greenland, the most gross and savage of mortals, compliment a stranger by saying, “he is as well bred as a Greenlander.”      

       While thus situated, a sturdy looking young fellow with that figure and       openness of countenance so peculiar to the young Irish peasants, and with his hose and brogues suspended from a stick over his shoulder, approached and hailed the party in Irish: the girls instantly pointed his attention towards me; he courteously accosted me in English, and having learnt the nature of my dilemma, offered to be my guide—“it will not take me above a mile out of my way, and if it did two, it would make no odds,”        said he. I accepted his offer, and we proceeded together over the summit of the mountain.     

       In the course of our conversation (which was very fluently supported on       his side,) I learnt, that few strangers ever passing through this remote part of the province, and even very many of the gentry here speaking Irish, it was a rare thing to meet with any one wholly unacquainted with the language, which accounted for the surprise, and I believe contempt, my ignorance had excited.     

       When I enquired into the nature of those choral strains I had heard, he replied—“O! as to that, it is according to the old woman’s fancy and in fact I learnt that Ireland, like Italy, has its improvisatores, and that those who are gifted with the impromptu talent are highly       

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