This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
NOTABLE IRISHWOMEN.
65

them comfortable for life, as their expenses were few, and presents from wealthy friends frequent. The Duke of York gave them a magnificent oak chest, and the Duchess of St. Albans contributed various valuable curiosities to their museum. Their Irish servant, Mary Carryl, was a great curiosity; she wore high heels and a stiff dress, using a profusion of hair powder and pomatum. At her death the ladies came in for a legacy of £500, which Mary Carryl left them out of her savings. With this sum the freehold of their cottage was purchased. They planted an avenue of beech and lime trees in pious memory of their loss, and called it Cathedral Walk. If any schoolboys visited them they filled their pockets with apples, saying "when they were schoolboys they were fond of apples."

The comical appearance of the ladies called forth the following description from Charles Mathews, the well-known actor, who was acting at Oswestry, in September, 1823:—

"The dear inseparable inimitables," he writes, "Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, were in the boxes here on Friday. They came twelve miles from Llangollen and returned, as they never sleep from home. Oh, such curiosities! I was nearly convulsed. I could scarcely get on with my part for the first ten minutes my eye caught them. Though I had never seen them I instantly