friendship between these two ladies, who actually eloped with one another, is a striking proof to the contrary. A short account of their lives may be interesting.
Lady Eleanor Butler, though born at Kilkenny in 1739, was partly educated in France, and she is supposed to have had some love affair there.
She always preserved a pleasant recollection of France, and when she was on her death-bed, at the age of ninety, she insisted upon making Miss Ponsonby, then seventy-four, sit on her bed, and quaver forth the favourite French air, "Malbrook s' en va t' en guerre."
Her home at Kilkenny, where she lived with her mother and sisters, was not congenial to her. She was a strong-minded young woman, born before her time, who liked to have her own way, and here she was kept under discipline after the fashion of that day. For thirty-nine years she endured her fate, and then she formed the idea of retiring to some secluded spot with her friend, Miss Sarah Ponsonby, and living for each other according to their own ideas of happiness. Miss Ponsonby resided in the house of her adopted parents, Sir William and Lady Betty Fownes, at Woodstock, Kilkenny, and during the Parliamentary Session, at 40 Dominick Street, Dublin. She was a tall, graceful girl; she spoke and understood French
