Candle-lights became very popular during the early Adam period, and continued to be made for many years. Their conception was, I am sure, French in its origin. A great many were made in Ireland (especially advertised in Dublin), and they were permeated with Adam feeling—graceful and simple.

These lights fell into disuse when gas became popular, and were stowed away in boxes and cellars and lumber-rooms; while others, still less fortunate, were actually thrown away or sold to the ragman for a few shillings.

Of those I have unearthed, a great number are in varying degrees of bad and good condition, and it is most interesting, with the aid of some original drawings (which I am fortunate enough to possess), to reconstruct these lovely fittings to their original beauty (see Plates IV., V., VI., VII.). Out of about five or six broken lights I can generally reconstruct one pair.

In my determined search for these treasures, I find that the metal back plates which fitted on the wall and held the glass lights are in nine cases out of ten missing, and after puzzling over this fact for some time I discovered they were nearly always utilised by being left on the walls and the gas-pipe brought through them! In any case, all the metal mounts appear to have been removed from the branches, cups, etc., and I think they were probably taken off and used for various purposes by the "house-carpenter," or handy man, and held far more value for him than the discarded glass, which is now rapidly becoming priceless.

In one instance I lost the ferrule off the end of my whip, and one of our men said he'd "put it right." I noticed a fine bit of chased brass appear on it. I said, "Larry, where did you get that?" "Shure, me lady, it's off th' auld glass light that was tooken from t' hall"! And it was! Irishmen have natural instincts—they always know a good thing, and they can unerringly tell you if a person is "someone" or not!