BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 171 



wheel felt hats. Pardonable curiosity might well 

 have caused any traveller by the Holyhead coach 

 who could scrape up an introduction to climb the 

 hill to Plas Newydd ; but it was not upon curi- 

 osity alone that the ladies relied for society. They 

 had the agreeability that could at will turn the 

 sightseer into an acquaintance, the means to weld 

 with good dinners such acquaintanceships into 

 permanence ; and aesthetic taste, the best part of 

 a century ahead of their time, that taught them 

 to frame the grotesque romance of their lives 

 and appearance in antique and splendid surround- 

 ings — the leisurely collection of many years — till 

 the poets and other people of distinction turned, 

 somewhat dazed, from the marvels of silver and 

 brass and carved oak, and, looking over the pleas- 

 ant vale of Llangollen from windows set deep in 

 wood-carving, pronounced it to be unique. 



The sun was very hot that afternoon as we 

 climbed on foot the steep hill up to Plas Newydd, 

 and it was difficult to receive with sangfroid, either 

 moral or physical, the intelligence that visitors 



