ersonal
attractions she had none. The future hero of Plassy was not, however, to
be deterred--but he made this compromise: If the lady could be prevailed
upon to visit India, and that neither party, on a personal acquaintance,
felt disposed for a nearer connection, the sum of L5000 was to be
presented to her. With this understanding all scruples were overcome.
Miss Maskelyne went out to India, and immediately after became the wife
of Clive, who, already prejudiced in her favor, is said to have
expressed himself surprised that she should ever have been represented
to him as plain. So much for the influence of mind and manner over mere
personal endowments. With the sad end of this distinguished general
every reader is familiar. His lady survived the event by many years, and
lived to a benevolent and venerable old age.

[From The Ladies' Companion.]

THE IMPRISONED LADY.

We derive the following curious passage of life one hundred years since,
from the second Series of Mr. Burke's "Anecdotes of the Aristocracy:"

Lady Cathcart was one of the four daughters of Mr. Malyn, of Southwark
and Battersea, in Surrey. She married four times, but never had any
issue. Her first husband was James Fleet, Esq., of the City of London,
Lord of the Manor of Tewing; her second, Captain Sabine, younger
brother of General Joseph Sabine, of Quinohall; her third, Charles,
eighth Lord Cathcart, of the kingdom of Scotland, Commander-in-Chief of
the Forces in the West Indies; and her fourth,[K] Hugh Macguire, an
officer in the Hungarian service, for whom she bought a
lieutenant-colonel's commission in the British army, and whom she also
survived. She was not encouraged, however, by his treatment, to verify
the resolution, which she inscribed as a posy on her wedding-ring:

"If I survive,
I will have five."

Her avowed motives for these several engagements were, for the first,
obedience to her parents; for the second, money; for the third, title;
and for the fourth, submission to the fact that "the devil owed her a
grudge, and would punish her for her sins." In the last union she met
with her match. The Hibernian fortune-hunter wanted only her money. Soon
after their marriage, she discovered her grievous mistake, and became
alarmed lest the colonel, who was desperately in love, not with the
widow, but with the "widow's jointured land," designed to carry her off,
and to get absolute power over all her property; to prepare for t