The first time Jack Campbell carries the Duchess into the Highlands, I
am persuaded that some of his second-sighted subjects will see him in
a winding-sheet with a train of kings behind him as long as those in
Macbeth." And again: "A match that would not disgrace Arcadia ... as
she is not quite so charming as her sister, I do not know whether it
is not better than to retain a title which puts one in mind of her
beauty."

The Dukes of Argyll--Lords of the Isles--have always shown a
partiality for beauties as brides. This Duke's father married the
beautiful Mary Bellenden, daughter of John, Lord Bellenden,--

"Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down."

* * * * *

She is mentioned otherwise as by Gay:--

"Bellenden we needs must praise,
Who, as down the stairs she jumps,
Sings 'Over the hills and far away,'
Despising doleful dumps."

Walpole says she was never mentioned by her contemporaries but as the
_most perfect creature_ they had ever known. The present Duke wedded
that charming child, Lady Elizabeth Leveson Gower, who sits on her
mother's knee in that surpassingly fine picture by Lawrence, called
"Lady Gower and Child." And his son is allied to the Princess Louise,
the most comely of Victoria's daughters.

After her sister's death, in 1760, her Grace of Argyll suffered a
decline in health. She was ordered abroad for change. She was
appointed to accompany the Princess Sophia Charlotte on her journey to
England to be married to the King. As they neared the ceremony in
London, the Princess became nervous. Her Grace essayed to quiet her
fears. "Ah, my dear Duchess, _you_ may laugh at me, but _you_ have
been married twice," said the Princess. The Duchess became one of the
ladies of the bedchamber, and was in much favor with the Queen.

In 1767, her father died at Somerset House, and her mother, the Hon.
Mrs. Gunning, in 1770. There were three sisters in the family besides
our heroines: Sophia Gunning died, an infant, in 1737; Lissy, who died
in 1752, aged eight years; and Catherine, who was married, in 1769, to
Robert Travis an Irish squire in her own rank of life. She died, too,
at Somerset House, in 1773, where she was an upper housekeeper. A
brother entered the army, fought at Bunker Hill, and became a
major-general in 1787. He was much of a ladies' man. He married a Miss
Minfie, author of some novels, and they had a daughter who aspired to
repeat the successes of