ueen
a a century and a half ago; and who, after ostracising herself from
Society by a flagrant lapse from virtue, lived to become the mother of
heroes, and to end her days in blindness and a tragic loneliness.

There was both passion and a love of adventure in the Lady Sarah's
blood; for had she not for great-grandfather that most fascinating and
philandering of monarchs, the second Charles; and for great-grandmother,
the lovely and frail Louise Renee de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth,
the most seductive of the beautiful trio of women--the Duchesses of
Portsmouth, Morland, and Mazarin--who spent their days in "open
dalliance" with the "Merrie Monarch," and their nights at the
basset-table, winning or losing guineas by the thousand.

As an infant, too, she drank in romance from her mother's breast--the
mother whose marriage is surely the most romantic in the annals of our
Peerage. One day, so the story runs, the Duke of Richmond, when playing
cards with the first Earl of Cadogan, staked the hand and fortune of his
heir, the Earl of March, on the issue of the game, which was won by Lord
Cadogan. On the following day the debt of honour was paid. The youthful
Earl was sent for from his school, Cadogan's daughter from the nursery;
a clergyman was in attendance, and the two children were told they were
immediately to be made husband and wife.

At sight of the plain, awkward, shrinking girl who was to be his bride
the handsome school-boy exclaimed in disgust, "You are surely not going
to marry me to that dowdy!" But there was no escape; the demands of
"honour" must be satisfied. The ceremony was quickly performed; and
within an hour of first setting eyes on each other, the children were
separated--Lord March being whisked back to his school-books, and his
bride to her nursery toys.

Many years later Lord March returned to London after a prolonged tour
round the world--a strikingly handsome, cultured young man, by no means
eager to renew his acquaintance with the "ugly duckling" who was his
wife. One evening when he was at the opera his eyes were drawn to a
vision of rare girlish loveliness in one of the boxes. He had seen no
sight so fair in all his wide travels; it fascinated him as beauty never
yet had had power to do.

Turning to a neighbour he asked who the lovely girl was. "You must
indeed be a stranger to London," was the answer, "if you do not know
the beautiful Lady March, the toast of the town!" Lady March! C