The gross rental is a little over £2000 a year of which one-half goes to Mr. Brooke's mother. Mr. Brooke himself is a wealthy man, at the head of the most important firm of wine-merchants in Ireland, and he has repeatedly spent on the property more than he took out of it. The house of Sir Thomas Esmonde, M.P., was pointed out to me from the road. "Sir Thomas is to marry an heiress, sir, isn't he, in America?" asked an ingenuous inquirer. I avowed my ignorance on this point. "Oh, well, they say so, for anyway the old house is being put in order for now the first time in forty years." We reached Arklow in time for luncheon, and drove to the large police barracks there. These were formerly the quarters of the troops. Arklow was one of the earliest settlements of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland under Henry II., and once rejoiced in a castle and a monastery both now obliterated; though a bit of an old tower here is said to have been erected in his time. The town lives by fishing, and by shipping copper and lead ore to South Wales. The houses are rather neat and well kept; but the street was full of little ragged, merry mendicants. We went into a small branch of the Bank of Ireland, and asked where we should find the hotel. We were very civilly directed to "The Register's Office over the way." This seemed odd enough. But reaching it we were further puzzled to see the sign over the doorway of a "coach-builder"! However, we rang the bell, and presently a maid-servant appeared, who assured us that this was really the hotel, and that we could have "whatever we liked" for luncheon. We liked what we found we could get--chops, potatoes, and parsnips; and without too much delay these were neatly served to us in a most remarkable room, ablaze with mural ornaments and decorations, upon which every imaginable pigment of the modern palette seemed to have been lavished, from a Nile-water-green dado to a scarlet and silver frieze. There were five times as many potatoes served to us as two men could possibly eat, and not one of them was half-boiled. But otherwise the meal was well enough, and the service excellent. Beer could be got for us, but the house had no licence, Lord Carysfort, the owner of the property, thinking, so our hostess said, that "there were too many licences in the town already." Lord Carysfort is probably right; but it is not every owner of a house, or even of a lease in Ireland, I fear, who would take such a view and act on it to the detriment of his own property. Dr. Dillon lives in the main square of Arklow in a very neat house. He was absent at a funeral in the handsome Catholic church near by when we called, but we were shown into his study, and he presently came in. His study was that of a man of letters and of politics. Blue-books and statistical works lay about in all directions, and on the table were the March numbers of the _Nineteenth Century_, and the _Contemporary Review_.