“I want to know!” she exclaimed, in her New England vernacular. “I guess by the looks o' your eyes they didn't turn out to be very lively comp'ny!” Part Fifth--Royal Meath. Chapter XXVI. Ireland's gold. 'I sat upon the rustic seat-- The seat an aged bay-tree crowns-- And saw outspreading from our feet The golden glory of the Downs. The furze-crowned heights, the glorious glen, The white-walled chapel glistening near, The house of God, the homes of men, The fragrant hay, the ripening ear.' Denis Florence M'Carthy. The Old Hall, Devorgilla, Vale of the Boyne. We have now lived in each of Ireland's four provinces, Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, but the confines of these provinces, and their number, have changed several times since the beginning of history. In A.D. 130 the Milesian monarchy was restored in the person of Tuathal (Too'hal) the Legitimate. Over each of the Irish provinces was a ri or king, and there was also over all Ireland an Ard-ri or supreme monarch who lived at Tara up to the time of its abandonment in the sixth century. Before Tuathal's day, the Ard-ri had for his land allowance only a small tract around Tara, but Tuathal cut off a portion from each of the four older provinces, at the Great Stone of Divisions in the centre of Ireland, making the fifth province of Royal Meath, which has since disappeared, but which was much larger than the present two counties of Meath and Westmeath. In this once famous, and now most lovely and fertile spot, with the good republican's love of royalty and royal institutions, we have settled ourselves; in the midst of verdant plains watered by the Boyne and the Blackwater, here rippling over shallows, there meandering in slow deep reaches between reedy banks. The Old Hall, from which I write, is somewhere in the vale of the Boyne, somewhere near Yellow Steeple, not so far from Treadagh, only a few miles from Ballybilly (I hope to be forgiven this irreverence to the glorious memory of his Majesty, William, Prince of Orange!), and within driving distance of Killkienan, Croagh-Patrick, Domteagh, and Tara Hill itself. If you know your Royal Meath, these geographical suggestions will give you some idea of our location; if not, take your map of Ireland, please (a thing nobody has near him), and find the town of Tuam, where you left us a little time ago. You will see a railway line from Tuam to Athenry, Athlone, and Mullingar. Anybody can visit Mullingar--it is for the million; but only the elect may go to Devorgilla. It is the captive of our bow and spear; or, to change the figure, it is a violet by a mossy stone, which we refuse to have plucked from its poetic solitude and worn in the bosom or in the buttonhole of the tourist.