urchill had set his heart
on his son marrying a gilded bride, and he had discovered the very woman
for his ambitious purpose--one Catherine Sedley, daughter of his old
friend Sir Charles Sedley, a lady, no longer quite young, angular and
unattractive, but heiress to much gold and many broad acres. And he lost
no time in impressing on his handsome boy the necessity of such an
alliance. Pretty maids-of-honour were all very well to practise
love-making on; but land and money-bags far outlast and outshine
penniless beauty.

For a few undecided weeks the lure seemed to attract Churchill, coupled
though it was with the death of his romance. He dallied with the
temptation as far as the stage of marriage-settlements; and rumour had
it that the match was as good as made. Handsome Jack Churchill was to
marry an elderly and gilded spinster, and to mount on her money-bags to
greatness!

No sooner had these rumours reached the ear of Sarah Jennings than she
flew into a towering rage. "Marry a shocking creature for money!" she
raved; "and this was what all his passionate protestations of love
amounted to!" Sitting down in her anger she poured out the vials of her
wrath on her treacherous swain, bidding him wed his gold.

"As for seeing you," she wrote, "I am resolved I never
will in private or in public if I can help it; and, as
for the last, I fear it will be some time before I can
order so as to be out of your way of seeing me. But
surely you must confess that you have been the falsest
creature upon earth to me. I must own that I believe I
shall suffer a great deal of trouble; but I will bear it,
and give God thanks, though too late I see my error."

Never had maid been so cruelly treated by man! After spurning Churchill
for months, returning nothing to his ardour and homage but a disdainful
shoulder or a gibe, the moment he dares to turn his eyes on any other
divinity she is the most outraged woman who ever staked happiness on a
man's constancy. But at least her anger served the purpose of bringing
Churchill back to his allegiance more promptly than smiles could have
done. He, who had never yielded a foot to an enemy on the field of
battle, quailed before the tornado of his lady's anger. He broke off the
negotiations for his marriage with Miss Sedley, who quickly found a
solace in the Duke of York's arms in spite of her lack of beauty, and
came back to the feet of his outraged lady on b