“I am not sure that some account of this has not been given before. But if it has the truth is always the same. And it is no great matter, since what I write is only information of the historian to give character. “For being perpetually interrupted, it is impossible to remember what I may have formally written on these subjects.” All of which above tends to show that in her old age Duchess Sarah had grown testy, and not forgetful of her old enemies. CHAPTER X. THE BEAUTIFUL VANILLA. An early marriage with a beautiful girl such as Lady Diana Spencer would probably have been the best thing which could have happened to the young Prince of Wales; it would possibly have obliterated the scars of his old love for his cousin Wilhelmina, which wounds certainly broke out again at a later period, and it might have kept him from disgraceful liaisons; at any rate it would have left him without excuse for them. The first of these _affaires du cœur_, began in a flirtation and ended in a tragedy as so many of these unfortunate attachments do. Who knows its beginning? Perhaps a kiss in the dark corridors of St. James’s Palace! The object of it was Miss Anne Vane (the “beautiful Vanilla”), daughter of Gilbert, 2nd Lord Barnard, a maid-of-honour to the Queen, and sister to the 1st Lord Darlington. This young lady was possessed of much beauty, but is not credited with cleverness as we understand it, which was all the worse for her, as she found herself among a set of unscrupulous courtiers, such as Lords Harrington and Hervey, the latter of whom was not at all above boasting of conquests over the opposite sex which he had not achieved, if such a word can be used in connection with the meanest act on earth. Miss Vane is said to have been full of levity which was the result of her want of cleverness, perhaps, and possessed, no doubt, the usual quantity of vanity which is allotted to a pretty girl with plenty of admirers, but on the whole it cannot be doubted that she was fond of the Prince, and, as a result of it, paid that penalty for a love which many young ladies do who place their affections on a man who is unable to marry them--she became a mother. The Prince of Wales, however, did a man’s duty, and at once acknowledged the child. The whole matter appears to have been very deplorable. The birth of the child--a boy--took place in her apartments as maid-of-honour in the palace of St. James’s, and the baby was baptized in the Chapel Royal, and given the name of Fitz Frederick Vane, evidently with the Prince’s full concurrence. (1732). He made no denial of his blame in the matter either in public or in private, but took the whole responsibility upon his own shoulders. In addition, as will be seen, he loved children.