In June the salmon arrive in schools, led each by a solemn pioneer, who knows his own special river; and then the fisher-folk are busy. So are the seals, whose appetite is dainty. Yet the hardy storm-children of Ennishowen love the seals although they eat their fish--for their coats are warm and soft to wear; their oil gives light through the long winter evenings for weaving of stuff and net-mending. There is a superstition which accounts for their views as to the seals; for they believe them to be animated by the souls of deceased maiden-aunts. It is only fair, in the inevitable equalisation of earthly matter, that our maiden-aunts should taste of our good things, and that we in our turn should live on theirs. A mile from the shore--at Swilly's mouth--stands Glas-aitch-é Island, a mere rock, a hundred feet above sea-level, crowned by an antique fortress, which was modernised and rendered habitable by a caprice of the late lord. At the period which now occupies us, it consisted of a dwelling rising sheer from the rock on three sides; its rough walls pierced by small windows, and topped by a watch-tower, on which was an iron beacon-basket. The fourth side looked upon a little garden, where, protected by low scrub and chronically asthmatic trees, a few flowers grew unkempt--planted there by my lady when she first visited the place as mistress. On this side, too, was a little creek which served as harbour for the boats--a great many boats of every sort and size; for the only amusement at Glas-aitch-é was boating, with a cast for a salmon or a codling now and again, and an occasional shot at a seal or cormorant. My lady arrived there in the yacht, and spent her afternoon alone as she wished, for it was late at night before Shane and Doreen were rowed across--the latter wearied by the long ride, but calmed in spirit by communing with nature. It was with a gloomy face and set lips that the Countess of Glandore wandered from room to room, all damp and chill from long neglect, each chair and table telling its own tale, each faded carpet and curtain whispering of the hated past, with its desperate anguish of humiliation. For this was the heart-chord which twanged most painfully in my lady's breast upon revisiting the place again. 'Set right the wrong while yet there is time'--how often had that wailing cry echoed in her ears! Yet while there still was time that wrong was never righted; for my lady had been so humbled, so abased, so utterly wrenched and mangled, during the year she had dwelt upon that island with my lord, that she revolted, with indignant protest, at a possibility of having to traverse the dark Valley of the Shadow yet again. As she looked at the chairs and tables, the whole bitterness of that degradation flooded back on her. She recalled how, sobbing on that sofa, she had prayed for death with scorching tears; how, standing by that casement, the sublime panorama of Donegal had been shut out by boiling drops of agony.