The morning looked as if it would turn to rain and wind, so I took the advice I had been given and let the canoes go off without me to the sports.  After a turn on the cliffs I came back to the house to write letters.  The little hostess was washing up the breakfast things when I arrived with my papers and pens, but she made room for me at the table, and spread out an old newspaper for me to write on.  A little later, when she had finished her washing, she came over to her usual place in the chimney corner, not far from where I was sitting, sat down on the floor, and took out her hairpins and began combing her hair.  As I finished each letter I had to say who it was to, and where the people lived; and then I had to tell her if they were married or single, how many children they had, and make a guess at how many pounds they spent in the year, and at the number of their servants.  Just before I finished, I the younger girl came back with three or four other young_ women, who were followed in a little while by a party of men.

I showed them some photographs of the Aran Islands and Wicklow, which they looked at with eagerness.  The little hostess was especially taken with two or three that had babies or children in their foreground; and as she put her hands on my shoulders, and leaned over to look at them, with the confidence that is so usual in these places, I could see that she had her full share of the passion for children which is powerful in all women who are permanently and profoundly attractive.  While I was telling her what I could about the children, I saw one of the men looking with peculiar amazement at an old photograph of myself that had been taken many years ago in an alley of the Luxembourg Gardens, where there were many statues in the background.  ‘Look at that,’ he whispered in Irish to one of the girls, pointing to the statues; ’in those countries they do have naked people standing about in their skins.’

I explained that the figures were of marble only, and then the little hostess and all the girls examined them also.  ‘Oh! dear me,’ said the little hostess, ’Is deas an rud do bheith ag siubhal ins an domhain mor’ (’It’s a fine thing to be travelling in the big world’).

In the afternoon I went up and walked along the narrow central ridge of the island, till I came to the highest point, which is nearly three miles west of the village.  The weather was gloomy and wild, and there was something nearly appalling in the loneliness of the place.  I could look down on either side into a foggy edge of grey moving sea, and then further off I could see many distant mountains, or look out across the shadowy outline of Inishtooskert to the Tearaught rock.  While I was sitting on the little mound which marks the summit of the island—­a mound stripped and riddled by rabbits—­ a heavy bank of fog began to work up from the south, behind Valentia, on the other jaw of Dingle Bay.  As soon as I saw it I hurried down from the pinnacle where I was, so