MARY BOYLE HER BOOK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: SVB SOLE VANITAS ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MARY BOYLE HER BOOK EDITED BY SIR COURTENAY BOYLE, K.C.B. Publisher’s Logo LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1901 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TO MY TWO WELL-BELOVED COUSINS GERTRUDE (COUNTESS OF KENMARE) AND LADY SARAH SPENCER WHOSE HEARTS, HANDS AND HOMES ARE EVER OPEN TO ME, THESE PAGES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY MARY BOYLE (“VANESSA”) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION These sketches of my dear aunt’s life were begun by her only a few years before she died. The discretion as to their publication was left to those on whose judgment she relied, and at their request I have undertaken to prepare the sketches for presentation to the public, and to add to them here and there a few explanatory notes of my own. I have left her chapters almost exactly as she wrote them. They are well described in her Preface, and are very characteristic of herself. Like a light-winged butterfly she flits from flower to flower, resting long on none, nor caring to return to what she had apparently only quitted for a moment. As is natural to one writing after a lapse of years, she refers within the space of a page or two to events which happened at wide intervals of time.