"In the name of God," said I, "who's that?"

"My wife. My name for her is Bellwattle. In a moment of exuberant spirits one day, she addressed me as Cruikshank. Why? For no reason. For less reason I returned her the compliment of Bellwattle. That at least was suggested by her name for me. What made her think of Cruikshank is more than I can tell you. She hasn't the faintest conception herself."

So I call them Cruikshank and Bellwattle. It seems in some odd way to fit in with the quaintness of their philosophy—this living to give to Nature in return for what Nature has to bestow on them.

Just before breakfast, then, came Dandy dancing attendance on Bellwattle. They had walked four miles.

She swung up the path from the gate with Dandy at her heels, and her step was as light as the morning. I had not even known until the night before that my host was married; yet as Dandy, seeing me for the first time that day, leapt thrice and was at my knees, she gave me a smile and a cry of good-morrow, and I felt we had been the best of friends for the better part of our lives.

"How about breakfast?" said Cruikshank.

Bellwattle nodded her head violently, waving a bunch of wild violets in her hand. I followed them slowly into the house. There was something on Dandy's mind which he had somehow or other to express.

"Well—what is it?" I said, and I caught one paw as he jumped up, so that he must walk upon his hind legs beside me. "What is it?"

He dragged at his paw until I set it free, and then he told me. He raced three times round one flower-bed and twice round another, with the sides of his body almost touching the ground, so incredible was the speed he made. When that was completed he came back and looked up at me with his tongue lolling out.

"I understand," said I. "I can feel it just the same. It's the country." Whereupon he started racing it all over again.

Of course, it is the moment that lives; never the hour or the day or the year. The moment is the nearest approach to the truth in our conception of Eternity. I have gone back in my mind since, over my stay at Ballysheen, and, though many a meal-time comes back to my memory with pleasure, that first breakfast stands out beyond them all.

The chintz curtains were drawn full back, the window was wide open. Marvellously muted by the 

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