,
could not refrain from indulging his passion for gambling. So inflamed
was he by this new beauty who had crossed his path that, to quote our
entertaining gossip again,

"two nights afterwards, being left alone with her, while
her mother and sister were at Bedford House, he found
himself so infatuated that he sent for a parson. The
doctor refused to perform the ceremony without licence or
ring--the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop. At
last they were married with the ring of the bed-curtain,
at half an hour after twelve at night, at Mayfair Chapel.
The Scotch are enraged, the women mad that so much beauty
has had its effect."

If the wooing be happy that is not long in doing, the new Duchess should
have been a very enviable woman; as no doubt she was, for she had
achieved a splendid match; the daughter of the penniless Irish squireen
had won, in a few days, rank and riches, which many an Earl's daughter
would have been proud to capture; and, although her Ducal husband was
"debauched, and damaged in his fortune and his person," he was her very
slave, and, as far as possible to such a man, did his best to make her
happy.

Translated to a new world of splendour the Irish girl seems to have
borne herself with astonishing dignity and modesty. She might, indeed,
have been cradled in a Duke's palace, instead of in a "dilapidated
farmhouse in the wilds of Ireland," so naturally did she take to her
new _role_. When Her Grace, wearing her Duchess's coronet, made her
curtsy to the King one March day in 1752,

"the crowd was so great, that even the noble mob in the
drawing-room clambered upon tables and chairs to look at
her. There are mobs at the doors to see her get into her
chair; and people go early to get places at the theatre
when it is known that she will be there."

A few weeks after the marriage, the Duke of Hamilton conducted his bride
to the home of his ancestors; and never perhaps has any but a Royal
bride made such a splendid progress to her future home. Along the entire
route from London to Scotland she was greeted with cheering crowds
struggling to catch a glimpse of the famous beauty, whose romantic story
had stirred even the least sentimental to sympathy and curiosity. When
they stopped one night at a Yorkshire inn, "seven hundred people," we
are told, "sat up all night in and about the house merely to see the
Duchess get into