CHAPTER X.The belles of Shandon.
'The spreading Lee that, like an Island fayre, Encloseth Corke with his divided floode.' Edmund Spenser.
We had seen all that Youghal could offer to the tourist; we were yearning for Salemina; we wanted to hear Benella talk about 'the science'; we were eager to inspect the archaeologist, to see if he 'would do' for Salemina instead of the canon, or even the minor canon, of the English Church, for whom we had always privately destined her.
Accordingly we decided to go by an earlier train, and give our family a pleasant surprise.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when our car trundled across St.Patrick's Bridge, past Father Mathew's statue, and within view of the church and bells of Shandon, that sound so grand on the pleasant waters of the river Lee.

Away to the west is the two-armed river.

Along its banks rise hills, green and well wooded, with beautiful gardens and verdant pastures reaching to the very brink of the shining stream.
It was Saturday afternoon, and I never drove through a livelier, quainter, more easy-going town.

The streets were full of people selling various things and plying various trades, and among them we saw many a girl pretty enough to recall Thackeray's admiration of the Corkagian beauties of his day.