The incident of Mrs. Henry Sheares singing to her harp for the entertainment of Armstrong was related to Madden by Miss Maria Steele, the friend of John Sheares. In Curran’s “Life,” written by his son, it is stated on the authority of a gentleman who had dined with the Sheareses, on the day in question that “he observed Armstrong, who was one of the guests, taking his entertainer’s little children upon his knee, and as it was then thought, affectionately caressing them.” Armstrong denied to Madden the truth of these statements, but his denials were not considered convincing. * * * * * The poor old lady, on whom the diabolical treachery of the guest of that Sunday dinner-party was to bring such suffering that the whole annals of “’Ninety-Eight” have nothing to surpass it, had already tasted in a fuller measure, than is the lot of common women, the joys and the sorrows of life. The near kinswoman of the distinguished lawyer, Sergeant Bettesworth, and a relation of the Earl of Shannon, she had been married, while still very young, to a wealthy Cork banker, Mr. Henry Sheares, son of Henry Sheares, Esq., M.P., of Goldenbush. At Goldenbush, by the pleasant Bandon river, the young couple resided for some time, and here a number of their children were born. But at a later date the family lived at Glasheen, about a mile and a half from Cork, and their abundant means allowed them to keep up another establishment in the city—a house which has been identified by Dr. Madden as situated at the corner of Moore Street and Nile Street. The young wife was highly accomplished, and it is rare to find a couple so perfectly matched, as were she and her husband, in every noble quality of heart and mind. She entered into his philanthropic schemes with the greatest zeal. Out of the abundance with which God had blessed them it was their joy to help all those in need. One of the spectacles which moved their compassion most keenly was that of decent poor people who, having fallen into debt, were by the barbarous law of the time, liable to be hauled off to prison for it, and to be herded with criminals, by whom they were too frequently contaminated. To help these unfortunates, whose only crime was poverty, Mr. Sheares instituted “the Society for the Relief of Persons Confined for Small Debts,” and in about nine months the secretary, Rev. Dr. Pigott, was able to report that “more than seventy poor wretches have been relieved by this institution from the depths of misery, and all the horrors of loathsome confinement—by which, at the same time, above 240 children (besides wives and other poor dependent relations) have had those restored to them from whose labour they derive their bread, and the community has been enriched by the replacing of many useful and industrious members.”