But though life at Cheltenham when the brothers were all away was dull for Mary, it had not been so at Somersby; for there they had home interests sufficient to keep them always occupied, and they were not without neighbours. Ormsby was close at hand, to the north, where lived as Rector, Frank Massingberd, afterwards Chancellor of Lincoln, a man of cultivation and old-world courtesy. His wife Fanny was one of the charming Miss Barings of Harrington, which was but a couple of miles off to the east. Her sister Rosa was that "sole rose of beauty, loveliness complete," to whom the Poet wrote such charming little birthday verses; and sixty-five years afterwards Rosa, then Mrs. Duncombe Shafto, still spoke with enthusiasm of those happy days. Mrs. Baring had married for her second husband, Admiral Eden, a man of great conversational powers, and with a very large circle of interesting friends. He took the old Hall of Harrington, with its fine brick front, from the Cracrofts, who moved to Hackthorn near Lincoln, and thus the families at Harrington and Somersby saw a great deal of one another. There were two Eden daughters, the strikingly handsome Dulcibella and her sister, who looked after the house and its guests. Hence their nicknames of "Dulce" and "Utile." A mile or two beyond Harrington was Langton, where Dr. Johnson came to visit his friend Bennet Langton, who died only seven years before Dr. Tennyson came to Somersby. But, though the Langtons were friends of the Doctor's, this was not a house the young people much frequented. Mary, having come back to the old neighbourhood, writes from Scremby: "I am going to Langton to-morrow to spend a few days with the Langtons, don't you pity me? I hope I shall get something more out of Mrs. Langton than Indeed, Yes, No!" Adjoining Langton the Tennysons had friends in the Swans of Saucethorpe, and a little farther eastwards was Partney, where George Maddison and his mother lived. He was a hero, of whom tales were told of many courageous deeds, such as his going single-handed and taking a desperate criminal who, being armed, had barricaded himself in an old building and set all the police at defiance. It was a question whether people most admired the courage of the man or the beauty of his charming wife, Fanny, one of the three good-looking daughters of Sir Alan Bellingham, who all found husbands in that neighbourhood. In the Lincolnshire poem, "The Spinster's Sweet-Arts," the Poet has immortalized their name: Goä to the laäne at the back, and loök thruf Maddison's gaäte!