ven look on the sons she loved.

A pathetic story is told of these last clouded days of Lady Sarah's
life. In the year 1814, when, although an old woman she had still twelve
years to live, she was present at a sermon preached by the Dean of
Canterbury in aid of an Infirmary for the cure of diseases of the eye.
As the preacher drew a pathetic picture of King George, a liberal patron
of the Infirmary, spending his days in darkness among the splendours of
his palace, tears were seen to stream down Lady Sarah's cheeks, until,
overcome by emotion, she asked her attendant to lead her out of the
church.

Who shall say what sad and tender memories were evoked by this picture
of her lover of fifty years earlier, in his darkness and isolation, shut
out like herself by a dark barrier from the joy and light of life. Among
the mental pictures that thronged her brain was, probably, that of a
dainty maiden, rake in hand, glancing archly from under her bonnet at a
gallant young Prince, whose eyes spoke love to hers as he rode
lingeringly by; and that other picture of the same maid, with downcast
eyes, declaring that she "thought nothing" of her Royal lover's vows,
though they carried a crown with them.

CHAPTER XVII

THE COUNTESS WHO MARRIED HER GROOM

Life has seldom dawned for any daughter of a noble house more fair or
full of promise than for the infant Lady Susanna Cochrane, second
daughter of John, fourth Earl of Dundonald. All that rank and wealth and
beauty could give were hers by birth. Her mother was an Earl's daughter,
and had for grandfather the Duke of Atholl. Her paternal grandmother was
Lady Susanna Hamilton, daughter of the Duke of Hamilton; and on both
sides she came from a line of fair women, many of whom, like her mother,
had ranked among the most beautiful in all Scotland.

Such was the splendid heritage of Lady Susanna when she opened her eyes
on the world two centuries ago; and, during the earlier years of her
life, it seemed that Fortune, who had already dowered her so richly,
could not smile too sweetly on her. She grew to girlhood and young
womanhood more beautiful even than her mother or her two sisters, Anne
and Catherine, of whom the former became a Duchess at sixteen; while
Catherine was not long out of the schoolroom before her hand was won by
the Earl of Galloway.

As for Susanna, the loveliest of the "three Graces"--"Scotland's
fairest daughter," to quote a chronicler of the time--she coun