Well, well: the trees are more beautiful now than ever they could have been before, but the ladies are gone. Their servant died in 1809; Lady Eleanor, in her 90th year, in 1829, and Miss Ponsonby two years later. But the interior of the house is much the same: rich in oak so black as to absorb much of the light; with a wealth of beautiful old china and miscellaneous odds and ends that would have delighted the soul of Horace Walpole. These collections owe much of their completeness to the late General Yorke, who had known the two ladies, and rescued the houseful of curiosities from utter dispersal at the sale by auction, conducted by that George Robins whose extravagant auctioneering eloquence has become a classic. In his words, the grounds of Plas Newydd occupied “a wooded knoll, overhanging a deep and hallowed glen”; language that may compare favourably with Wordsworth’s sonnet. [Illustration: PLAS NEWYDD.] We have seen Lockhart excusing himself for laughing at these “good old girls,” as he calls them, and have his word for it that they were “the guardian angels of the village”; but whatever they may have done in their lifetime has been quite thrown into the background by the posthumous benefits their fame has conferred upon Llangollen. Local charities until recently benefited largely from the fees charged to visitors curious to see the collections at Plas Newydd; but since a party of thieves and vandals broke some of the objects and stole others the house has not been so readily accessible. It would be quite impossible for a stranger to visit Llangollen for even the shortest space of time and then to come away ignorant of the Ladies, for photographs of them, statuettes, and paintings abound at every turn, and must prove an important source of revenue. It is no more possible to flee from the Ladies of Llangollen in Llangollen than it is to avoid Lorna Doone at Ilfracombe, or Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. XXXVII