“They tell me that a light heart makes easy work of a day's journey. Take my word for it, that to get over the ground without a thought of the road, there's nothing like a regular knock-down affliction. I walked eight hours, and at a good pace, too, without so much as a few minutes' halt, so overwhelmed was I with sensations that would not admit of my remembering anything else. My first moment of consciousness--for really it was such--came on as I found myself breasting a steep stony ascent, on the brow of which stood the bleak residence of my friend Mr. Magennis, of Barnagheela. I have already told you of my visit to his house, so that I need not inflict you with any new detail of the locality, but I confess, little as it promised to cheer or rally the spirits, I was well pleased to find myself so near a roof under which I might take refuge. I knocked vigorously at the door, but none answered my summons. I repeated my demand for admittance still more loudly, and at last went round to the back of the house, which I found as rigidly barred as the front. While still hesitating what course to take, I spied Joan Landy--you remember the girl I spoke of in a former letter--ascending the hill at a brisk pace. In a moment I was beside her. Poor thing, she seemed overjoyed at our meeting, and warmly welcomed me to her house. 'Tom is away,' said she, 'in Dublin, they tell me, but he 'll be back in a day or two, and there 's nobody he 'd be so glad to see as yourself when he comes.' In the world, Harry,--that is, in your world and mine,--such a proposition as Joan's would have its share of embarrassments. Construe it how one might, there would be at least some awkwardness in accepting such hospitality. So I certainly felt it, and, as we walked along, rather turned the conversation towards herself, and whither she had been. “'I 'm not more than half an hour out of the house,' said she, 'for I only went down the boreen to show the short cut by Kell Mills to a young lady that was here.' “'A visitor, Mrs. Joan?' “'Yes. But to be sure you know her yourself, for you came with her the day she walked part of the way back with me from Cro' Martin.' “'Miss Henderson?' “'Maybe that's her name. She only told me to call her Kate.' “'Was she here alone?--did she come on foot?--which way is she gone?' cried I, hurrying question after question. Perhaps the tone of my last was most urgent, for it was to that she replied, by pointing to a glen between two furze-clad hills, and saying, 'That's the road she 's taking, till she crosses the ford at Coomavaragh.' “'And she is alone?' “'That she is; sorra a one with her, and she has five good miles before her.'