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, what a beautiful house!” “Yes,” answered her husband, reining in his horse to enjoy the view; “it is a lovely place.  How would you like, my dear Sally, to be its mistress?” Sally broke into a merry peal of laughter.  “Only fancy me,” she said, “mistress of such a noble house!  It’s too funny for words.  But how I should love it if we were only rich enough to live in it!” “I am so glad you like it, darling,” answered her husband, as he turned in the saddle and placed an arm around her waist; “for it is yours.  I am the Earl of Exeter, its owner, and you—­well, you are my Countess—­and my Queen.”

   “‘Now welcome, Lady!’ exclaimed the Earl—­
    ‘This Castle is thine, and these dark woods all.’ 
    She believed him wild, but his words were truth,
    For Ellen is Lady of Rosenthal.”

He did not, like the hero of Moore’s ballad, “blow his horn with a lordly air”; but with his Countess he presented himself at the door of Burleigh to receive the homage and welcome due to its lord.

   “Many a gallant gay domestic
    Bow before him at the door;
    And they speak in gentle murmur
    When they answer to his call,
    While he treads with footsteps firmer
    Leading on from hall to hall. 
    And while now she wanders blindly,
    Nor the meaning can divine,
    Proudly turns he round and kindly,
    ‘All of that is mine and thine.’”

Thus did Sarah Hoggins, the peasant-girl, blossom into a Countess, chatelaine of three lordly pleasure-houses, and Lady Bountiful to an army of dependents.  The news of the romantic story flashed through the county, indeed through the whole of England; and great lords and ladies by the score flocked to Burleigh to welcome and pay homage to its heroine.