flower of English chivalry, the Bentincks were renowned in Holland and the Scotts traced their lineage from the pride of Scotland.

The Duke could not bring himself all at once to give Lady Charlotte away to one who had no title.

She was a little over twenty years of age and when her father refused to hear of the suit of John Evelyn Denison she shed many tears in the presence of her maid. Life to her at this time was by no means so full of sunshine as is usually supposed to be the good fortune of Duke's daughters.

At length Lady Charlotte expressed her intention of eloping with Mr. Denison, and at the prospect of indirectly creating a sensation in high life the Farmer Duke relented.

Lady Charlotte's marriage was her first triumph. Her next was when her husband rose to be Speaker of the House of Commons in 1857 and she herself one of the most important personages at the Court of Queen Victoria.

She had become rich and influential, so that when her husband retired from the Speakership he was in a position to tell the Government of the day that he did not intend to take the pension of £5000 a year, to which he was entitled as an ex-Speaker. His refusal was couched in the following words:—"Though without any pretensions to wealth, I have a private fortune which will suffice, and for the few years of life that remain to me I shall be happier in the feeling that I am not a burden to my fellow-countrymen."

Such self-abnegation is not characteristic of many men. On being elevated to the House of Lords he took the title of Viscount Ossington (after the village of Ossington in Notts, which was his ancestral home) and Lady Charlotte was henceforth known as the Viscountess Ossington.

It was a step downward in rank for her, as her marriage with a Commoner did not degrade her to his status. As a Duke's daughter she was still Lady Charlotte and took precedence of Marchionesses, Countesses, and Viscountesses in the etiquette of royal courts and drawing-rooms.

When her husband became a peer she had to take his rank, and it was one of those indefinable sacrifices associated with noble birth, that, as a Viscountess, she had to give precedence to the wives of Marquises and Earls.

To one who had filled so high a position as Lady Ossington had done in political and social life the descent in status involved by the adoption of the new title was not of much moment. She had been honoured by royalty and had done the honours to royalty, she had tasted all the pleasures that aristocratic Society could provide.

Like her brother, the eccentric Duke, Lady Ossington spent large sums of money, intended, directly or indirectly, to benefit the wage-earning classes.

In a spirit of philanthropy she built a coffee palace at Newark, Notts, a town nine miles from Ossington, at a cost of over £20,000. Her object was to provide a hostel where travellers of humble means could find accommodation for the night, at charges within their means, and that it should be a centre of meeting for Friendly Societies and other bodies in their business and social gatherings. The profits of the establishment she directed to be paid to the hospital.

Another coffee palace on similar lines she erected in Marylebone, London, involving an outlay of several thousands.

South African colonization found in her a sympathetic patroness in days when South Africa was little more than a name to the large majority of Englishmen. At her expense in 1886 a party of twenty-four families was sent to the Wolseley settlement, an estate acquired by purchase, about seventeen miles from King William's Town, where full preparations for their reception had been made by a committee. Within two years and a-half the settlement was closed, the cheapness of untaxed drink having changed the settlers from abstainers into drunkards.

The Viscountess was not daunted by this failure to realise her hopes, and in 1888 another attempt at colonization was made under her auspices. Twenty-five families, mostly from Hampshire, sailed for the Cape and formed a new settlement, called by the name of the poet Tennyson. This time the experience of the past was a warning, the enterprise was attended by fairer prospects of success and before her death she had the gratification of knowing that the settlers were contented and happy.

Another of the Duke's daughters was the Dowager Lady Howard de Walden, who became immensely rich on the death of Lady Ossington. Their father had so willed it that if the fifth Duke died without male heirs the London property was to pass to his daughters. Lady Ossington had no children and her rich dowry passed to her sister, who thereby had a double portion. Ossington Hall, after having been for so many years the home of a Duke's daughter, reverted to the Denison family.

From allusions made by Lord George Bentinck to his friends, when he had lost heavily on the turf, it was understood that his mother and sisters, especially Lady Charlotte, were always ready to help him over his difficulties. It is surmised that they knew more of his secrets and of the secrets of the Marquis of Titchfield than the old Farmer Duke who frowned upon betting transactions and was not known to have been involved in the excitements of a duel and gallantries to actresses, not to mention a nebulous secondary existence as Thomas Druce.

Ossington is within easy carriage distance of Welbeck, but the eccentric brother rarely saw his sister and the latter was astonished at the transformation of the Abbey and grounds brought about by him. Before the alteration of her ancestral home she made an interesting sketch of it, as it was in her father's lifetime.

CHAPTER V

EARLY LIFE OF LORD JOHN BENTINCK, AFTERWARDS FIFTH DUKE OF PORTLAND.—THE ADELAIDE KEMBLE ROMANCE

Lord John Bentinck was born in September 1800, the second son of the fourth Duke. His name in its extended form was William John Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, and for many years, till the death of his brother Henry, he had no prospect of succeeding to the Dukedom. At nineteen he was a lieutenant in the army, and in 1824 was returned as Member of Parliament for King's Lynn; but the duties of a legislator do not seem to have been much to his taste and he resigned in 1826, his brother, Lord George Bentinck, being elected to take his place.

The fourth Duke kept a large stud of race-horses and Lord John was brought up in the atmosphere of the turf. When a young man he was a horseman, fearless and even reckless in his equestrian exploits. There used to be a gate six feet high at Serlby Hall, the seat of Viscount Galway, which it was said he had jumped one day when hunting.

The three brothers, Henry, John and George, formed a racing partnership under the name of "Mr. Bowes" and were for a time successful in their enterprise, their transactions bringing in considerable sums of money.

The death of the eldest, Henry, in 1824 transformed Lord John into Marquis of Titchfield, heir to the Dukedom and enormous estates of the House of Portland.

With all his splendid advantages of birth and fortune he does not appear to have sought for a wife among the aristocratic families of the land, and it is said that he only made one offer of marriage in his life; at least that was known to his friends. This was to Miss Adelaide Kemble, the celebrated actress.

The tempting proposal was probably made some time between June and October, 1834, when the lady was twenty-five years of age and the Marquis thirty-four.

Judge of his astonishment when she had to confess to him that it was impossible for her to accept his offer as she was already secretly married.

She was at the height of her popularity on the stage, having achieved a splendid triumph in redeeming the fallen fortunes of her family, and though married to another, she cherished