The practical conclusion came in due time. In the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for August, A. D. 1742, there is the record of eleven marriages. Four of them saucily chronicle the fortunes of the brides. Among the other seven may be read this brief announcement: “August 5, Edward Montagu, Esq., member for Huntingdon, to the eldest daughter of Matthew Robinson, of Horton, in Kent, Esq.” CHAPTER II. Edward Montagu was the son of Charles, who was the fifth son of the first Earl of Sandwich. He was a well-endowed gentleman, both intellectually and materially, and he adopted the Socratic maxim, that a wise man keeps out of public business. He is described as being “of a different turn from his wife, fond of the severer studies, particularly mathematics.” Under his influence, the bounding Iambe from Horton gradually grew into the “Minerva,” as she was called by friends as well as epigrammatists. Mr. Montagu was a mathematician of great eminence; and a coal-owner of great wealth. He was a man of very retired habits and great amiability. He loved to puzzle fellow mathematicians with problems, and he did not dislike coals to be high in price; but he urged other owners to incur the odium of “making the advance.” Mr. and Mrs. Montagu were married in London, and did not immediately leave it. Mr. Freind officiated at the marriage ceremony. The bride, in a note to Mrs. Freind, expressed her infinite obligation to him, “for not letting the knot be tied by the hands of an ordinary bungler.” On Friday, August 6th, the day after her marriage, the bride wrote to the Duchess of Portland: “If you will be at home to-morrow, at two o’clock, I will pass an hour with you; but pray send me word to Jermyn Street at eleven, whether I can come to you without meeting any person at Whitehall but the duke; to every one else pray deny your dressing-room. Mr. Freind will tell your Grace I really behaved magnanimously; not one cowardly tear, I assure you, did I shed at the solemn altar; my mind was in no mirthful mood indeed. I have a great hope of happiness. The world, as you say, speaks well of Mr. Montagu, and I have many obligations to him which must gain my particular esteem; but such a change of life must furnish one with a thousand anxious thoughts.” Shortly after, the newly wedded pair travelled to one of Mr. Montagu’s estates in the north; but not alone. They were accompanied by the bride’s sister. The custom of sending a chaperon with a young married couple prevailed. Indeed, down to a comparatively recent period, some husbands and wives, who were married in Yorkshire, may remember that to have started on their wedding trip, or their journey home, without a third person, would have been considered lamentable indecorum. The bride thus speaks of the journey and the new home. To Mrs. Freind, she writes: