The Miss Mac Taafs were both on the ground, and both standing enough in
profile, to give Lord Arranmore a full and perfect view of their figure,
without being seen by them. His first opinion was, that they were
utterly unchanged; and that like the dried specimens of natural history,
they had bidden defiance to time. Tall, stately, and erect, their
weather-beaten countenance and strongly marked features were neither
faded nor fallen in. The deep red hue of a frosty and vigorous senility
still coloured their unwrinkled faces. Their hair, well powdered and
pomatumed, was drawn up by the roots from their high foreheads, over
their lofty "systems;" and their long, lank necks rose like towers above
their projecting busts; which, with their straight, sticky, tight-laced
waists, terminating in the artificial rotundity of a half-dress
bell-hoop, gave them the proportions of an hour-glass. They wore grey
camlet riding habits, with large black Birmingham buttons (to mark the
slight mourning for their deceased brother-in-law): while petticoats,
fastened as pins did or did not their office, shewed more of the quilted
marseilles and stuff beneath, than the precision of the toilet required:
both of which, from their contact with the water of the bog, merited the
epithet of "Slappersallagh," bestowed on their wearers by Terence
O'Brien. Their habit-shirts, chitterlings, and cravats, though trimmed
with Trawlee lace, seemed by their colour to evince that yellow starch,
put out of fashion by the ruff of the murderous Mrs. Turner in England,
was still to be had in Ireland. Their large, broad silver watches,
pendant from their girdle by massy steel chains, showed that their
owners took as little account of time as time had taken of them. "Worn
for show, not use," they were still without those hands, which it had
been in the contemplation of the Miss Mac Taafs to have replaced by the
first opportunity, for the last five years. High-crowned black-beaver
hats, with two stiff, upright, black feathers, that seemed to bridle
like their wearers, and a large buckle and band, completed the costume
of these venerable specimens of human architecture: the _tout ensemble_
recalling to the nephew the very figures and dresses which had struck
him with admiration and awe when first brought in from the Isles of
Arran by his foster mother, to pay his duty to his aunts, and ask their
blessing, eighteen years before. The Miss Mac Taafs, in their
sixty-first year, (for they were twins,) might have sunk with safety ten
or twelve years of their age. Their minds and persons were composed of
that fibre which constitutes nature's veriest huckaback. Impressions
fell lightly on both; and years and feelings alike left them unworn and
uninjured.--_The O'Briens, and the O'Flahertys, by Lady Morgan_.
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