almost. The contrast between that fair and
delicate creature thus invaded, and the flushed
and delighted faces, is almost ludicrous. But
it was meant well and heartily. Since the
great day of London-bridge there has been no
such welcome for her as at Punchestown.
With that we all begin to disperse and get
home as best, or rather as worst, we can—
that is, on the engine, among the coals, in the
horse-boxes and cattle-vans, and, more agreeably,
on the tops of the carriages.

II. THE INSTALLATION.

THE old cathedral, where the great dean was
in office—and where the large, dark, saturnine
face had often been seen in the choir reading the
offices, while that tremendous soul within was
preying on itself, wasting with rage and
disappointment at exile and neglect—was for long, a
tottering decrepit pile, broken down, awry,
and propped up with crutches. Lately came a
large-hearted and generous man, with a stout
cheque-book, the best medicine of the day,
which brings health, strength and beauty, and
gave back to the decaying veteran new limbs,
new bones, and new skin, and new blood. It
now almost challenges notice from a jaunty and
spick and span air. Here are the stalls of the
knights of St. Patrick—the swords and
banners and relics of the good old pre-union days,
when there was a great deal of pleasant
theatrical spirit abroad, and a taste for glitter, and
for shows and processions.

Here is a strange old quarter, a very rookery,
a nest of narrow old streets, of squalid lanes,
of ruined houses, and mean alleys, which in those
old days were once "fashionable" and select,
and, like reduced gentlemen, have sunk into
degradation and necessities lower than any
which would have befallen the regular poor.
To this quarter it has been decided to bring
our prince in a procession, the like of which
has not been known within the memory of
man, and to make an Irish knight of him with
a pomp and splendour that shall long be talked
of. Again the day is bright, the sun shining,
and that pleasant feel is abroad over every one,
the result of fine weather and good spirits
combined with a show. For months preparations
have been going on—and now at last all is
ready.

The city has very much the air of a foreign
town. There are ambitious buildings in the Greek
manner, and little breaks and vistas, irregular
and highly picturesque. The grim manufacturing
element is far away. On this festival
all the streets are lined with soldiery, and from
the gate of the rather gloomy castle, down the
steep hill which leads from it, on by the old
Parliament House, by the College, the squares,
the huge St. Stephen's green, appears this broad
scarlet avenue, with its sparkling silver bayonet
fringe. On the outer edge clusters the usual
coarser black fringe of the commonalty. All
business is stopped, all carriages save those
going to the show, must retire into back
places. There is the roar and hum of expectancy,
the distant braying of military music
passing on afar off, including the great orchestra
of the guards, whose tuneful strains have
made many a twinkling foot move to music
so pleasant. There are the usual false alarms
when a general or an inferior player is taken
for the principal. At last it comes—a stately
procession, soldiers, carbineers, lancers, a dozen
of state carriages, liveries blazing with gold
and scarlet, and goes by in a roar and a
shout that is passed on, and which to the
persons thus saluted must seem to be one
prolonged cheer from the first starting point
to the last. But as it begins to trail through
the squalid Ghetto—the narrow network of
streets that lead to the cathedral—the hill
and dale slums that cluster about it, conceive
the amazement of the inhabitants of this quarter
at such an august invasion! From the windows
of the cracked and tottering houses, where
the view is not impeded by clothes hung out to
dry, look out unkempt heads packed close; while
below cluster thickly an immense throng of
the unwashed commonalty. Poor souls, it is
long since they have been so disturbed in their
half savage retreats, and, above all, so dazzled
by the cluster of superior mortals who have
been coming and going all this month. And
now the bearskins appear, and the lines of
soldiery have made their way down, lining
these Seven Dials, as they might be called—
a great day for Ireland, indeed!

Inside the pale yellow cathedral, all is ready,
with all in their places, waiting—a scarlet
pathway from end to end, between two vast
banks of human flowers, potted and bedded
there without crush or confusion; gay bonnets,
and laces, and dresses, and ribbons, fluttering
in the sun, and dotted with scarlet—every one
seated, every one waiting. The colours, the
faces, the shifting of tones, with the pale-
blue colour of the Order; the thrones and
canopy, the galleries where the musicians are,
and the distant view, through an arch, of the
chapel where the chapter is to meet, all unite
to please the eye. Every one of note and every
dignitary is there—English, Scotch, and native.
Here are the peeresses in their own department,
the wives of the knights of the Order; judges
in scarlet and ermine, chancellors in gold and
black; privy councillors with gold laid on in
rich splashes and daubs; soldiers' uniforms in
profusion—all clustered according to their
degree; strangers from all parts; Lord Mayor
of London and other civic potentates; English
bishops, English earls and nobles; and in a place
of honour, the "skilful Irishman" who has seen
and described more gaudy shows than anyone
in the world—from a coronation at Moscow to
a marriage at Windsor—and whose picturesque
touch will presently draw the whole scene for the
most important journal in Europe.

At last! Now we, so long in restraint, so
patiently waiting, hear the faint sounds of
martial music, far away and drawing near; with