Isabella, who had some knowledge of chemistry, discovered, by touching
the coins with nitric acid, that several of them were of gold, and
consequently of great value. Caroline also found out that many of the
coins were very valuable as curiosities. She recollected her father's
having shown to her the prints of the coins at the end of each king's
reign, in "Rapin's History of England;" and upon comparing these
impressions with the coins found by the orphans, she perceived that many
of them were of the reign of Henry the Seventh, which, from their
scarcity, were highly appreciated by numismatic collectors.

Isabella and Caroline, knowing something of the character of Mr. Hopkins,
the agent, had the precaution to count the coins, and to mark each of
them with a cross, so small that it was scarcely visible to the naked
eye, though it was easily to be seen through a magnifying glass. They
also begged that their father, who was well acquainted with Mr. Harvey,
the gentleman to whom Rossmore Castle belonged, to write to him, and tell
him how well these orphans had behaved about the treasure which they had
found. The value of the coins was estimated at about thirty or forty
guineas.

A few days after the fall of the chimney at Rossmore Castle, as Mary and
her sisters were sitting at their work, there came hobbling in an old
woman, leaning on a crab stick, that seemed to have been newly cut. She
had a broken tobacco-pipe in her mouth; her head was wrapped up in two
large red and blue handkerchiefs, with their crooked corners hanging far
down over the back of her neck, no shoes on her broad feet, nor stockings
on her many-coloured legs. Her petticoat was jagged at the bottom, and
the skirt of her gown turned up over her shoulders, to serve instead of a
cloak, which she had sold for whisky. This old woman was well known