arah Hoggins was led to the rustic
altar by her "highwayman" bridegroom.

For two ideally happy years Mr Jones lived with his humble bride in the
fine new house which he had built for her, and which he called Burleigh
Villa. He had lived down his character of highwayman, and was regarded,
and respected, as the most important man in the village. He was even
appointed to the honourable offices of churchwarden and overseer; while
under his tuition his peasant-wife was becoming, in the words of the
village gossips, "quite the lady."

One day towards the end of December, 1793, after two years of this
idyllic life, Mr Jones chanced to read in a country paper news which he
had dreaded, for it meant a revolution in his life, the return to the
world he had so gladly forsaken. His dream of the simple life, of
peaceful days, was at an end. His uncle, the old Earl, was dead, and the
coronet and large estates had devolved on him. Should he refuse to take
them, and end his days in this idyllic obscurity, or should he claim the
"baubles," and return to the hollow splendour of a life on which he had
turned his back?

The struggle between duty and inclination was long and bitter; but in
the end duty carried the day. He would go to "Burghley House by Stamford
Town," and fill his place on the roll of the Earls of Exeter. To his
wife he merely said: "To-morrow we must start on a journey to
Lincolnshire. Business calls me there, and we will go together," a
proposal to which she gladly consented, for it meant that she would see
something of the great outside world with the husband she loved.

At daybreak next morning "Mr Jones" said good-bye to his kind hosts and
relatives and to the scene of so much peaceful happiness, and, mounting
his wife behind him on a pillion, started on the journey to distant
Lincolnshire. Through Cannock Chase, by Lichfield and Leicester, they
rode, finding hospitality at many a great house on the way, rather to
the dismay of Sarah, who would have preferred the accommodation of some
modest inn, and who marvelled not a little that her husband, the obscure
artist, should be known to and welcomed by such great folk. But was he
not her hero, one of "Nature's gentlemen," and as such the equal of any
man in the land?

At last, after days of happy journeying through the cold December days,
they came within view of a stately mansion placed in a lordly park, at
sight of which Sarah exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, "Oh, w