After my father’s death in 1868 Mary Boyle established herself in a small house in South Audley Street. James Russell Lowell, one of the many brilliant men who both got and gave pleasure by a visit to her tiny rooms, says of it: “No knock could surprise the modest door of what she called her _bonbonnière_, for it opened and still opens to let in as many distinguished persons, and what is better, as many devoted friends as any in London.” This was written in 1888, the last year of her occupancy, and two years before her death. “Miss Mary Boyle,” he goes on to say, “bears no discoverable relation to dates. As nobody ever knew how old the Countess of Desmond was, so nobody can tell how young Miss Mary Boyle is. However long she may live, hers can never be that most dismal of fates to outlive her friends while cheerfulness, kindliness, cleverness, and all the other good nesses have anything to do with the making of them.” She certainly had the faculty, a somewhat rare one, of making as well as keeping friends. I have met in the wee chamber, which she was wont to call a drawing-room, men of three generations all coming within the category to which Mr Lowell refers. [Illustration: “THE BONBONNIÈRE”, 22 SOUTH AUDLEY STREET. ] Nor were her guests all of one sex. Neither her cleverness nor her kindliness alone would have sufficed to keep the friendship of the many women who loved her till her death. Together they did. So her rooms were filled with those who were lovely and brilliant as well as those who were learned and clever. The friendship which Mary Boyle maintained with men of distinction in many spheres of life lasted for a long period of years. Mr Lowell in the passage I have quoted was preparing for publication some letters which were written to her by Walter Savage Landor.[4] Those who wish to read these letters in full may find them in the _Century Magazine_ for February 1888. “They are most interesting,” says Lowell, “and have more clearly the stamp of the writer’s character than many of Goethe’s to the Frau von Stein. They give an amiable picture of him without his armour and in an undress, though never a careless or slovenly one.” They are too long to be set out at length here, but I may cite a few brief passages. The opening sentence of the first especially commends itself to me. Lowell thinks it was written in 1842: “Your letter is a most delightful ramble. I believe I must come and be your writing-master. Certainly if I did nothing else by drilling, I should make rank and file stand closer.”... “You ask me if I have ever seen Burleigh? Yes, nearly half a century ago. Nevertheless I have not forgotten its magnificence. No place ever struck me so forcibly. And then the grounds!”... Footnote 4: _See_ Supplementary Chapter.