You may still suspect, and so did some of the council, that every tittle of this report and of the letter were not gospel:  though I own, I thought the epistle not irreconcilable to other parts of the conduct of their graces about their children.  Still, I defy you to guess a thousandth part of the marvellous explanation of the mystery.

The first circumstance that struck was, that the Duke, in his own son’s name, had forgotten the d in the middle.  That was possible in the hurry of doing justice.  Next, the wax was black; and nobody could discover for whom such illustrious personages were in mourning.  Well; that was no proof one way or other.  Unluckily, somebody suggested that Lord Henry Spencer was in town, though to return the next day to Holland.  A messenger was sent to him, though very late at night, to beg he would repair to Argyll-house.  He did; the letter was shown to him; he laughed, and said it had not the least resemblance to his father’s hand.  This was negative detection enough; but now comes the most positive and wonderful unravelling!

The next day the General received a letter from a gentleman, confessing that his wife, a friend of Miss Charly, had lately received from her a copy of a most satisfactory testimonial from the Duke of Marlborough In her favour (though, note, the narrative was not then gone to Blenheim); and begging the gentlewoman’s husband would transcribe it, and send it to her, as she wished to send it to a friend in the country.  The husband had done so, but had had the precaution to write at top Copy; and before the signature had written, signed, M.—­both which words Miss had erased, and then delivered the gentleman’s identic transcript to the groom, to be brought back as from Blenheim:  which the steady groom, on being examined anew, confessed; and that, being bribed, he had gone but one post, and invented the rest.

You will now pity the poor General, who has been a dupe from the beginning, and sheds floods of tears; nay, has actually turned his daughter out of doors, as she banished from Argyll-house too:  and Lady Charlotte,(738) to her honour, speaks of her with the utmost Indignation.  In fact, there never was a more extraordinary tissue of effrontery, folly, and imposture.

it is a strange but not a miraculous part of this strange story, that Gunnilda is actually harboured by, and lodges with, the old Duchess(739) in Pall-Mall, the grandmother of whom she has miscarried, and who was the first that was big with her.  You may depend on the authenticity of this narrative, and may guess from whom I received all the circumstances, day by day; but pray, do not quote me for that reason, nor let it out of your hands, nor transcribe any part of it.  The town knows the story confusedly, and a million of false readings there will be; but, though you know it exactly, do not send it back hither.  You will, perhaps, be diverted by the various ways in which it will be related.  Yours, etc.  Eginhart, secretary to Charlemagne and the Princess Gunnilda, his daughter.