his cousin, as well as two other officers of similar opinions, of their commissions; and was challenging the Government to show just cause for the severity displayed towards these men, of one of whom, being his own near relation, he would from personal knowledge, "that the service did not possess a more zealous, meritorious, and promising member."

say,

The remonstrance was naturally futile. Lord Edward remained-as he himself had foreseen might be the case-scratched out of the army.

CHAPTER X

1792-1793

Pamela and Lord Edward's Family-Her Portrait-Effect
upon Lord Edward of Cashierment-Catholic Convention
---Scene in Parliament-Catholic Relief Bill-Lawlessness
in the Country-Lord Edward's Isolation.

M

ADAME DE GENLIS has distinctly stated

in her account of the marriage that she would by no means have permitted the angelical Pamela—an angel, by the way, cast in very terrestrial mould-to enter the FitzGerald family without the consent of the Duchess of Leinster, giving it to be understood that Lord Edward had gone to England to obtain that consent, and that it was not until his return, successful, that the wedding took place.

Madame de Genlis should be a good authority, but there are, nevertheless, grounds for believing it at least possible that the Duchess's sanction to the arrangement was somewhat belated; and that, like a wise woman, and a mother who wished to retain her son, she had set herself after the event to make the best of the inevitable. Whether her consent was given before or after, it is possible that the recollection of her own second marriage, in which there must have

been an element of romance, strangely associated with the excellent Scotch tutor, and which, in the eyes of the world, must have appeared in the light of a signal triumph of sentiment over sense-it is possible that this, with the added memory of all the good years it had given her, may have inclined her to take a more indulgent view than she might otherwise have done of her son's hasty marriage.

There is, at any rate, no symptom of any interruption in the tender relationship of the mother and son ; and Lord Edward, writing to thank the Duchess for the letter in which she had evidently bestowed her blessing upon the match, told her that she had never made him so happy.

"I cannot tell you," he added, "how strongly my little wife feels it. . . You must love her-she wants to be loved."

There is no doubt that Pamela did want to be loved. It was a want which she felt all her life; and which, it may be added, she probably took every available means in her power-and they were not few-to satisfy. In the case of women as well as men, though she was not fond of the society of the first, she had an exaggerated desire to please, born of the innate coquetry which, one of her marked features, lasted on even to old age. The Duc de la Force, who had exceptional opportunities of forming a judgment, when asked if, at the age of sixty, she was still a coquette, is said to have answered with a laugh, "More than ever!" adding that when she found

herself deprived, in the solitude of his château, of worthier subjects upon which to exert her powers of fascination, she was wont to exercise them upon the gardener.

And her powers of fascination were beyond question great. Even when nearer fifty than forty we hear of her, dressed in white muslin and garlanded with roses, dancing at a ball and ensnaring the heart of an English lad of less than half her years. And if such was her charm at an age when most women resign themselves to be lookers-on at life, what must it have been in the spring-time of her youth? Lord Edward, whatever may be thought of her in other respects, had married a charming wife-upon this head at least there cannot be two opinions. Years afterwards, when he had long been in his grave, and Pamela, a poor little waif on the waves of life, had been washed to and fro at their will, a candid friend, giving an account of her, and including in the description no shortened list of her faults and failings, nevertheless concluded with the acknowledgment that she was, in spite of all, irresistible.

As one reads this lady's account in the light of the facts which are known to us, one acquires a clear enough picture of the fair little figure, with the face which so took the fancy of Robert Southey that, lover of letters as he was, he forgot the authoress at her side; with her eyes of brun-vert, her pretty brows and dazzling complexion, the mouth the worst feature in the face and spoilt by a habit of biting her lips;