Page:Notable Irishwomen.djvu/176

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NOTABLE IRISHWOMEN.

acquisition anywhere, for she sang delightfully, and had such a good ear that if she went to the opera, she would be heard singing all the airs from it next morning.

Lady Dufferin was left a widow in 1841. At Rome during the Easter ceremonies at St. Peter's, in her widow's cap with a large crape veil over it, she created quite a sensation. Mrs. Somerville says that, "with her exquisite features and oval face, anything more lovely could not be conceived, and the Roman people crowded round her in undisguised admiration."

By the death of his brothers, her husband had succeeded to the title, and she now devoted herself, more than ever, to her only son. She always accompanied him in his visits to Clandeboye, and she joined him in his yacht during a cruise in the Mediterranean. He had just published his "Letters from High Latitudes," and she embodied her experience in a book that she called "Lispings from Low Latitudes, or extracts from the Journal of the Hon. Impulsia Gushington." This was published in 1860.

It was not surprising that such a very attractive woman as Lady Dufferin should have many offers of marriage, but, brilliant as many of them were, she resolutely kept to her determination of making a home for her son, who was rapidly coming to the front of public life. One of her admirers was the