man should have snapped him
up! Something ought to be done about it."

But, for the moment, nothing was "done about it," and the knot was
tied on July 14. Lola saw that the knot should be a double one; and
the ceremony took place, first, at the French Catholic Chapel in King
Street, and afterwards at St. George's, Hanover Square.

[Illustration: _Berrymead Priory, Acton, where Lola Montez lived with
Cornet Heald_]

A press representative, happening to be among the congregation, rushed
off to Grub Street. There he was rewarded with a welcome five
shillings by his editor, who, in high glee at securing such a piece of
news before any other journal, had a characteristic paragraph on the
subject:

Lola Montez, Countess of Landsfeld, the ex-danseuse and
ex-favourite of the imbecile old King of Bavaria, is, we are
able to inform our readers, at last married legitimately.
_On dit_ that her young husband, Mr. George Trafford Heald,
has been dragged into the match somewhat hurriedly. It will
be curious to mark the progress of the Countess in this
novel position. A sudden change from a career of furious
excitement to one in which prudence and a regard for the
rules of good society are the very opposite to those
observed by loose foreigners must prove a trial to her.
Whipping commissaries of police, and setting ferocious dogs
at inoffensive civilians, may do very well for Munich. In
England, however, we are scarcely prepared for these
activities, even if they be deemed the privilege of a
countess.

Disraeli, who had a hearty appetite for all the tit-bits of gossip
discussed in Mayfair drawing-rooms, heard of the match and mentioned
it in a letter to his sister, Sarah:

_July, 1849._

The Lola Montez marriage makes a sensation. I believe he
[Heald] has only L3,000 per annum, not L13,000. It was an
affair of a few days. She sent to ask the refusal of his
dog, which she understood was for sale--of course it wasn't,
being very beautiful. But he sent it as a present. She
rejoined; he called; and they were married in a week. He is
only twenty-one, and wished to be distinguished. Their
dinner invitations are already out, I am told. She quite
convinced him previously that she was not Mrs. James; and,
as for the King of Bavaria, who, by the by, allows her L1500
a year, and to whom she writes ever