The illustrations which adorn this closing chapter have no connection with its subject, but are not on that account altogether out of place; for they are the only ones which are outside the title of the work, two being from Ireland, and two from Venice, and they are associated with two of the main incidents of the artist's life, namely, her marriage, and her only art work abroad. [Illustration: 78. A CABIN AT BALLYSHANNON _From a Water-colour in the possession of the Artist._ Painted 1891.] Ballyshannon is the birthplace of Mr. William Allingham, who married Mrs. Allingham in 1874. It is situated in County Donegal, and was described by him as "an odd, out-of-the way little town on the extreme western verge of Europe; our next neighbours, sunset way, being citizens of the great Republic, which indeed to our imagination seemed little, if at all, farther off than England in the opposite direction. Before it spreads a great ocean, behind stretches many an islanded lake. On the south runs a wavy line of blue mountains, and on the north, over green, rocky hills, rise peaks of a more distant range. The trees hide in glens or cluster near the river; grey rocks and boulders lie scattered about the windy pastures." Here Mr. Allingham was born of the good old stock of one of Cromwell's settlers, and here he lived until he was two-and-twenty. The drawing now reproduced was made when Mrs. Allingham visited the place with his children after his death in 1889. Many ruined cabins lie around; money is scarce in Donegal, and each year the tenants become fewer, some emigrating, others who have done so sending to their relations to join them. Better times are indeed necessary if the country is not to become a desert. [Illustration: 79. THE FAIRY BRIDGES _From the Water-colour in the possession of the Artist._ Painted 1891.] The Fairy Bridges--a series of natural arches, carved or shaken out of the cliffs, in times long past, by the rollers of the Atlantic--are within a walk of Ballyshannon, and were often visited by Mrs. Allingham during her stay there. Three of them (there are five in all) are seen in the drawing, and a quaint and mythological faith connects them with Elfindom--a faith which every Irishman in the last generation imbibed with his mother's milk, and which is not yet extinct in the lovely crags and glens of Donegal. The scene is introduced into two of Mr. Allingham's best-known songs; in one, "The Fairies," thus-- Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men. Down along the rocky shore Some make their home, They live in crispy pancakes Of yellow tide foam.