hire to the glamour and
splendours of the Royal Court, where her beauty dazzled all eyes.

The Duke of York himself lost his heart at sight of her, and turned on
her the battery of his sighs and smiles, his ogling and flattering
speeches. When she met his advances with coldness, he bombarded her with
notes "containing the tenderest expressions and most magnificent
promises," slipping them into her pocket or muff, as opportunity served;
but the disdainful beauty dropped the _billets-doux_ on the floor for
any one to read who chose to pick them up, until at last the Royal lover
was compelled to abandon the pursuit in despair.

James's brother, the King, made violent love to her; and every Court
gallant, from the Duke of Buckingham to Henry Jermyn, the richest beau
in England, fluttered round her beauty like moths around a candle. How,
after many romantic vicissitudes, Frances Jennings gave her heart and
hand to Dick Talbot, the handsomest man in the British Isles; how she
raised him to a Dukedom, and, as Duchess of Tyrconnel, queened it as
Vicereine of Ireland; and how, in later life, she sank from this dizzy
pinnacle to such depths of poverty that for a time she was thankful to
sell tapes and ribbons in the New Exchange bazaar in the Strand, is one
of the most romantic stories in the annals of our Peerage.

While Frances Jennings was coquetting with coronets and playing the
madcap at the Court of Whitehall, Sarah was growing to girlhood in her
rustic environment in Hertfordshire, more interested in her pony and her
toys than in all the baubles that made up the life of that very fine
lady her sister, and giving no thought to her beauty, to which each day
was adding its touch of grace. But she was not long to remain in such
innocence; for one day when she was still but a child of twelve her
sister came in a splendid Court carriage, and took her off to London,
where a very different life awaited her.

She was not, it is true, to move like Frances in the splendid circle of
the Throne, though she was to be on its fringe and to catch many a
glimpse of it. Her more modest _role_ was to be playfellow and companion
of the Duke of York's younger daughter, Anne--a shy, backward child, a
few years younger than herself, who suffered from an affection of the
eyes, which practically closed books and the ordinary avenues of
education to her.

To such a child cradled in a palace and hedged round by ceremonial,
Sarah Jennings, with t