One night, about thirty years later than the period of which I am writing, he was driving with a lady to Twickenham, to some evening entertainment, when the coach was held up by a highwayman. With the greatest calmness and promptitude the lady at once handed the errant of the road her purse, bulging with money. The man seized it and rode off, well pleased with the spoil. But the lady was more happy still, for she had come provided for emergencies. The purse only contained _counterfeit_ coin! Towards the end of George II.’s reign two figures appeared in Hyde Park that startled Society—two fortuneless Irish girls, the daughters of an Irish squire, and nieces of Lord Mayo. Horace Walpole describes them as “the two handsomest women alive.” “Those goddesses the Gunnings” was Mrs. Montagu’s term for them. Such was their poverty, that when they were presented at Dublin Castle, Mrs. Peg Woffington, the actress, lent them dresses in which to appear. They made their début at the English Court in 1751, and from that time crowds used to come daily to the Park to have a sight of them. They were mobbed wherever they went; in fact, at the Drawing-Room when the younger one, Elizabeth, was presented on her marriage with the Duke of Hamilton, the ladies clambered on to chairs and tables to see her. Walpole writes: “As you talk of our beauties, I shall tell you a new story of the Gunnings, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen, though neither of them, nor anything about them, has yet been _teterrima belli causa_. They went the other day to see Hampton Court; as they were going into the Beauty-room, another company arrived; the housekeeper said, ‘This way, ladies, here are the beauties.’ The Gunnings flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant; they came to see the palace, not to be shown as a sight themselves.” They were fêted and feasted by everybody, and their own heads evidently became turned as well as other people’s. It was at Chesterfield House that the younger sister met the Duke of Hamilton, who fell in love at first sight, but the story of their romantic marriage with the curtain ring is well known. The elder one married Lord Coventry about a fortnight later. Both romances were a godsend to the gossiping habitués of Hyde Park, who, however, were plenteously supplied with dainty morsels such as they loved, in the form of secret marriages. It was the heyday of the Keith marriages at Mayfair Chapel, and at the Fleet. Tit-bits from the gaming-tables were told and passed from one another, until Mrs. Montagu, disgusted with the scandal in these meetings and the gambling that went on at parties, made a new departure in Society.