The Life and Times of Mary Ann McCracken, 1770–1866. Mary McNeill

on the evening in question, had the uncomfortable feeling that Russell himself was the first, if unconscious, offender, “by a look which even at moonlight, was it seems, worse than a sentence.”27

      Mary Ann was exactly twenty years old when she and Thomas met. There is no doubt at all that she found him overwhelmingly attractive, for his “manly beauty”, as well as for the strength and goodness of his character, but there is not the slightest hint that her feelings for him were in any degree reciprocated. Russell, for his part, during these early days in Belfast, met and loved another – the beautiful Bess Goddard, but before he could take steps to secure her hand, a tragic incident occurred which blasted all those hopes.