[9] I have been reminded by the artist that my first introduction to her was at Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, whither I went to see the products of this Shere visit, and that I came away with some of them in my possession. [10] Another tree at Hatfield also claims this distinction. [11] See "In Wormley Wood" (Plate 46), in the description of which I have referred to the reasons for the disappearance of thatch as a roof material. An additional one to those there mentioned is without doubt the risk of fire. Since the introduction of coal, chimneys clog much more readily with soot, and a fire from one of these with its showers of sparks may quickly set ablaze not only the cottage where this happens, but the whole village. That the insurance companies, by their higher premiums for thatch-covered houses, recognise a greater risk, may or may not be proof of greater liability to conflagration, but we certainly nowadays hear of much fewer of those disasters, which even persons now living can remember, whereby whole villages were swept out of existence. [12] Do not these lines rather refer to gorse? [13] Rightly perhaps, for the local doctor pleasantly inquired while she was painting it, why she had selected a house that had had more fever in it than any other in the parish. [14] Mrs. Allingham's friends sometimes say to her, "You paint so quickly." Her reply is, "Perhaps I make a quick beginning, but I take a long time to finish." Which is the fact. [15] When will the day come that editions of the books illustrated by Birket Foster will attain to their proper value? The poets illustrated by miserable process blocks find a sale, whilst these volumes, issued in the middle of the last century, and containing the finest specimens of the wood-cutting art, attract, if we may judge by the second-hand book-sellers' catalogues, no purchasers even at a sum which is a fraction of their original price. [16] _Irish Songs and Poems_ (1887), p. 47. [Transcriber's Note: Plate images have been moved to the beginning of the text headers. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]