1855] OXFORD LIFE 399
drive by Corwen and Bettwys y Coed took us to the Penrhyn Arms at Capel Curig, where my mother had often been in her childhood, and where, at the bottom of the garden, is the noble view of Snowdon across lake and moorland, so well known from pictures innumerable. From Llanberis I ascended Snowdon, which in my recollection is — from its innate pictur-esquesness, not its views — the only mountain in Europe worth ascending, except Soracte. Afterwards we went to the William Stanleys1 at PenrhSs in Anglesea, and it was a very pleasant visit, as Mrs. William Stanley was a most kind and amusing person, good-natured to young people, and exceedingly pleased with my delight over all she showed me, especially over the rocks — so glorious in colour — near the South Stack lighthouse. It recalls oddly the extreme poverty as to pocket-money in which I spent my youth, when I remember that the sum of £2 which my Aunt Lucy gave me at Penrh6s was at twenty-one the largest present in money that I had ever yet received in my life. I spent it in the purchase of Lord Lindsay's " Christian Art."
After visiting Penrhyn Castle, we went to take lodgings near the Albert Ways at Conway, of which I recollect nothing remarkable except the exemplification of " cast not your pearls before swine " in the frantic eagerness the pigs at Towen showed to get at the mussels from which the tiny pearls found there (and sold at two shillings an ounce) were being extracted by the pearl-fishers. Our next visit was to
1 William Owen Stanley, twin-brother of Edward-John, 2nd Lord Stanley of Alderley. ittf* m