“She’s gone home these three days, my lard.” “Gone! is she sick?” “Not as I know _on_, my lard. Myself does not know what ailed her, except she would be jealous of my lighting the fire. But I can’t say what ailed her; for she went away without a word good or bad, when she seen me lighting this fire, which I did by the housekeeper’s orders.” I now recollected poor Ellinor’s request, and reproached myself for having neglected to fulfil my promise, upon an affair which, however trifling in itself, appeared of consequence to her. In the course of my morning’s ride I determined to call upon her at her own house, and make my apologies: but first I satisfied my curiosity about a prodigious number of _parks_ and _towns_ which I had heard of upon my estate. Many a ragged man had come to me, with the modest request that I would let him _one of the parks near the town_. The horse-park, the deer-park, the cow-park, were not quite sufficient to answer the ideas I had attached to the word _park_: but I was quite astonished and mortified when I beheld the bits and corners of land near the town of Glenthorn, on which these high-sounding titles had been bestowed:--just what would feed a cow is sufficient in Ireland to constitute a park. When I heard the names of above a hundred towns on the Glenthorn estate, I had an exalted idea of my own territories; and I was impatient to make a progress through my dominions: but, upon visiting a few of these places, my curiosity was satisfied. Two or three cabins gathered together were sufficient to constitute a town, and the land adjoining thereto is called a town-land. The denominations of these town-lands having continued from generation to generation, according to ancient surveys of Ireland, it is sufficient to show the boundaries of a town-land, to prove that there must be a town; and a tradition of a town continues to be satisfactory, even when only a single cabin remains. I turned my horse’s head away in disgust from one of these traditionary towns, and desired a boy to show me the way to Ellinor O’Donoghoe’s house. “So I will, plase your honour, my lard; sure I’ve a right to know, for she’s my own granny.”