‘There is nothing to see, no one to talk to, nowhere to stop at!’
‘All true,’ muttered the other. ‘By the way, haven’t we some plan or project for to-day—something about an old castle or an abbey to see?’
‘Yes, and the waiter brought me a letter. I think it was addressed to you, and I left it on my dressing-table. I had forgotten all about it. I’ll go and fetch it.’
Short as his absence was, it gave Walpole time enough to recur to his late judgment on his tour, and once more call it a ‘mistake, a complete mistake.’ The Ireland of wits, dramatists, and romance-writers was a conventional thing, and bore no resemblance whatsoever to the rain-soaked, dreary-looking, depressed reality. ‘These Irish, they are odd without being droll, just as they are poor without being picturesque; but of all the delusions we nourish about them, there is not one so thoroughly absurd as to call them dangerous.’
He had just arrived at this mature opinion, when his friend re-entered and handed him the note.
‘Here is a piece of luck. Per Bacco!’ cried Walpole, as he ran over the lines. ‘This beats all I could have hoped for. Listen to this—“Dear Mr. Walpole,—I cannot tell you the delight I feel in the prospect of seeing a dear friend, or a friend from dear Italy, which is it? “’
‘Who writes this?’
‘A certain Mademoiselle Kostalergi, whom I knew at Rome; one of the prettiest, cleverest, and nicest girls I ever met in my life.’
‘Not the daughter of that precious Count Kostalergi you have told me such stories of?’
‘The same, but most unlike him in every way. She is here, apparently with an uncle, who is now from home, and she and her cousin invite us to luncheon to-day.’