The story represented, with some exaggeration, the lives led by Lady Bab and Mrs. Scott in their “conventual house” at Batheaston. Both boys and girls were well trained by those ladies at that place. Mrs. Montagu, in reference to Mrs. Scott’s good works, so loved her sister as to render her uncharitable to other people. “Methodist ladies,” she said, “did out of enthusiasm what Mrs. Scott did out of a calm sense of duty, and gratitude that the employment was a solace to one who had been cruelly tried by affliction.” No credit was given to poor Lady Bab, but her happy temperament could well afford to do without it. Strange as the stories were which illustrate “Millennium Hall,” they were not nearly so strange as one which, in March, 1762, Mrs. Scott related to her brother at Rome, in a letter from Bath: “Those who deal in the small wares of scandal will not want subjects. Miss Hunter, daughter to Orby Hunter, has lately furnished a copious topic.... She and Lord Pembroke, in spite of winds, waves, and war, left this kingdom for one where they imagined they may love with less molestation,—where they cannot see a wife weep nor hear a father rage. They set off in a storm better suited to travelling witches than flying lovers, but were so impeded by the weather, that a captain sent out a boat and took the lady prisoner; but after he had set her on shore, he found that, as she was of age, it was difficult to assume any lawful authority over her; and, after having spent a night in tears and lamentation, she was restored to Lord Pembroke.... His lordship resigned his commission and his place of lord of the bedchamber, and wrote a letter to Lady Pembroke, acknowledging her charms and virtues and his own baseness (an unnecessary thing, since the latter she must long have known, and was probably not absolutely ignorant of the former), but assuring her Miss Hunter was irresistible; that he never intended to return into England, and had taken care that £5,000 should be paid her yearly. As Lady Pembroke is so handsome and amiable, perhaps his conduct will be seen by the world in a true light, without any fashionable palliations. A report was spread, that they were taken by a privateer, but I can hear of none but of a very different capture—the clay cold corpses of Lord and Lady Kingstone, which were on their way to England for interment.”