We have already mentioned that Edward Bunting was, for some forty years, an inmate of the McCracken household. It was under their roof that his celebrated collections of “Ancient Irish Music” were made, and all the McCrackens, but especially Mary, took the very keenest interest in the work. In 1802, Patrick Lynch, a native Irish speaker (who had given lessons in the language to Russell during the latter’s sojourn in Belfast in the early ’Nineties), was sent by Bunting on a tour to Connacht to collect airs. Of his progress he writes (during Bunting’s absence in London) detailed reports to John McCracken and “Miss Mary”—and it is clear from these letters that they were as much interested in the mission as Bunting himself.[88] Footnote 88: See “Annals of the Irish Harpers,” _passim_. In 1803, John McCracken, Senior, died, and in 1814 Mrs. McCracken and her son, William, were both called to their reward. Shortly after their mother’s death the McCracken sisters gave up business and went to live with their brother Frank (who had remained a bachelor) in Donegal Street. The talent of Miss Margaret McCracken for housekeeping left Mary with a great many free hours on her hands—and these she devoted to active works of charity. The picture her grandniece has left us of her avocations is a true one for many years of her life. Her mornings were spent in out-of-door occupations—collecting for some charity, attending meetings, or visiting the poor in their homes, or the poor children in the Lancastrian School. Of the charitable institutions in which she took an active interest her grandniece mentions an industrial school for girls, established in the Famine year; the Belfast Ladies’ Clothing Society; the Destitute Sick Society; an anti-slavery society, and an association to prevent the employment of climbing-boys in chimney sweeping. In the afternoon she rested, and her evenings were largely devoted to letter-writing (for she had a large correspondence) or to that social intercourse in which, even to extreme old age, her genial spirit delighted. Of her personality her grandniece gives some very attractive glimpses: “In personal habits she was scrupulously clean, but indifferent about her dress, unwilling to spend money on it, and giving it little thought.