As an infant, too, she drank in romance from her mother’s breast—­the mother whose marriage is surely the most romantic in the annals of our Peerage.  One day, so the story runs, the Duke of Richmond, when playing cards with the first Earl of Cadogan, staked the hand and fortune of his heir, the Earl of March, on the issue of the game, which was won by Lord Cadogan.  On the following day the debt of honour was paid.  The youthful Earl was sent for from his school, Cadogan’s daughter from the nursery; a clergyman was in attendance, and the two children were told they were immediately to be made husband and wife.

At sight of the plain, awkward, shrinking girl who was to be his bride the handsome school-boy exclaimed in disgust, “You are surely not going to marry me to that dowdy!” But there was no escape; the demands of “honour” must be satisfied.  The ceremony was quickly performed; and within an hour of first setting eyes on each other, the children were separated—­Lord March being whisked back to his school-books, and his bride to her nursery toys.

Many years later Lord March returned to London after a prolonged tour round the world—­a strikingly handsome, cultured young man, by no means eager to renew his acquaintance with the “ugly duckling” who was his wife.  One evening when he was at the opera his eyes were drawn to a vision of rare girlish loveliness in one of the boxes.  He had seen no sight so fair in all his wide travels; it fascinated him as beauty never yet had had power to do.

Turning to a neighbour he asked who the lovely girl was.  “You must indeed be a stranger to London,” was the answer, “if you do not know the beautiful Lady March, the toast of the town!” Lady March!  Could that exquisite flower of young womanhood be the ugly, awkward girl he had married so strangely as a boy?  Impossible!  He proceeded to the box, introduced himself, and found to his delight that the beautiful girl was indeed none other than Lady March, whom he had every right to claim as his wife.  A few too brief years of happy wedded life followed; and when the Earl died in the prime of manhood his Countess, unable to live without him, began to droop and, within a few months, followed him to the grave.

Such was the singular romance to which Lady Sarah Lennox owed her being, a romance which was to have a parallel in her own life.  As a child in the nursery she gave promise of charms at least as great as those of her mother.  And she was as merry and full of mischief as she was beautiful.

One day (it is her son who tells the story) she was walking with her nurse and her aunt, Lady Louisa Conolly, in Kensington Gardens, when George II. chanced to stroll by.  Breaking away from her guardian the pretty little madcap ran up to the King and exclaimed in French:  “How do you do, Mr King?  You have a beautiful house here, n’est-ce pas?” George was so delighted with the child’s naivete that he took her up in his arms, gave her a hearty kiss, and would not release her until she had promised to come and see him.