The half door of the barn is carried into the ring by one or two of her admirers, whom she numbers by the score, and on this she dances her famous jig polthogue, sometimes alone and sometimes with Art Rooney, the only worthy partner for her in the kingdom of Kerry.

Art's mother, 'Bid' Rooney, is a keen matchmaker, and we heard her the other day advising her son, who was going to Dooclone, to have a 'weeny court' with his colleen, to put a clane shirt on him in the middle of the week, and disthract Kitty intirely by showin' her he had three of thim, annyway! Kitty is a beauty, and doesn't need to be made 'purty wid cows'-- a feat that the old Irishman proposed to do when he was consummating a match for his plain daughter.

But the gifts of the gods seldom come singly, and Kitty is well fortuned as well as beautiful; fifty pounds, her own bedstead and its fittings, a cow, a pig, and a web of linen are supposed to be the dazzling total, so that it is small wonder her deluderin' ways are maddening half the boys in Ballyfuchsia and Dooclone.

She has the prettiest pair of feet in the County Kerry, and when they are encased in a smart pair of shoes, bought for her by Art's rival, the big constable from Ballyfuchsia barracks, how they do twinkle and caper over that half barn door, to be sure! Even Murty, the blind fiddler, seems intoxicated by the plaudits of the bystanders, and he certainly never plays so well for anybody as for Kitty of the Meadow.

Blindness is still common in Ireland, owing to the smoke in these wretched cabins, where sometimes a hole in the roof is the only chimney; and although the scores of blind fiddlers no longer traverse the land, finding a welcome at all firesides, they are still to be found in every community.