It had been a stronghold of the princes of Powys, and held to be important as commanding this pass up the valley of the Dee. Perhaps Collen got across with the men of Dinas Bran as he had with the monks of Glastonbury, and in a huff packed up his duds and went away. As everyone has heard of the beauties of Llangollen, so has everyone heard of its old maids. These were Lady Eleanor Butler, sister of John Earl of Ormonde, and Miss Sarah Ponsonby, daughter of Chambre Brabazon Ponsonby, Esquire, grandson of the first Lord Bessborough. They had been friends from early girlhood, and their tastes coincided. Both loved quietude, and neither felt any vocation for the married life. Many and brilliant offers had been made to Lady Eleanor, but she rejected every suitor, and in 1779 induced her friend to retire with her to Llangollen, and there they spent the rest of their lives--full half a century. They protested that not once for thirty hours successively had they quitted their peaceful retreat since they entered it. Miss Seward describes this house as it was during their lives:-- “It consists of four apartments--a kitchen, the lightsome little dining-room, the drawing-room, and library. “This room (the parlour) is fitted up in the Gothic style, the door and large sash-windows of that form, and the latter of painted glass. Candles are seldom admitted into this apartment. The ingenious friends have invented a prismatic lantern, which occupies the whole elliptic arch of the Gothic door. The lantern is of cut glass, variously coloured, enclosing two lamps. The light it imparts resembles that of a volcano, sanguine and solemn. It is assisted by two glow-worm lamps that, in little marble reservoirs, stand on the chimney-piece. A large Æolian harp is fixed in one of the windows, and when the weather permits them to be opened, it breathes its deep tones to the gale, swelling and softening as that rises and falls. “This saloon of the Minervas contains the finest editions, superbly bound, of the best authors; over them the portraits in miniature, and some in larger ovals, of their favoured friends. The kitchen garden is neatness itself. The fruit trees are all of the rarest and finest sort, and luxuriant in their produce.” She further describes their personal appearance:-- “Lady Eleanor is of middle height, and somewhat beyond the _embonpoint_ as to plumpness; the face round and fair, with the glow of luxuriant health. She has not fine features, but they are agreeable; enthusiasm in her eye, hilarity and benevolence in her smile. Miss Ponsonby, somewhat taller than her friend, is neither slender nor otherwise, but very graceful. A face rather long than round, a complexion clear, but without bloom, with a countenance which, from its soft melancholy, has peculiar interest.” [Illustration: THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN] Now compare this with the description given by Charles Mathews:--