Of the particulars of her mother’s connection with Lord Burlington, I am entirely ignorant; I merely give the story as it was related to me, with the only details I can recall, by Illidge, who had it from the lips of a niece of Lord Burlington’s housekeeper. The latter, being in his service at the time of the incident, but having secrecy enjoined on her, kept silence till many years after. On La Violette’s marriage with David Garrick, in 1749, Lord Burlington bestowed on her a dowry of £6,000, and one of the biographers of the great actor says that this generosity on his lordship’s part gave rise to the conjecture that she was his own child, going on, however, to argue, by dates and diaries, that the English nobleman had not been on the Continent at the time specified, and that the girl was the daughter of Viennese parents of the name of Viegel. It would be useless and tedious to enter into all the minutiæ of that bygone history. I merely mention the facts as related to me by one who thought it necessary to speak of it in a confidential manner, although everybody connected with the little romance had long passed away. The Garrick union was a very happy one, and for thirty years the husband and wife were inseparable. The widow survived him for a long period, and it was my good fortune to see her when I was quite a child. We encountered her in the lobby of a theatre, as she was making her way out between two female attendants, and my father said to me: “That is Mrs Garrick, Mary; some day you will be glad to think that you have seen her.” She wore a strange costume of quilted white silk, somewhat resembling a dressing-gown, and a large mob cap, and though very aged, bore undoubted traces of former beauty. I believe it was shortly before her death. She died at Hampton, having nearly attained her hundredth year, at a house which her husband bequeathed to her, and which still bears the name, if I am not mistaken, of “Garrick’s Villa.” To return to Illidge. The dear old soul continued to live on in her lowly cot, with two companions, a “gal” to do the housework, and an octogenarian, between her and whom a tender friendship existed, he having been in old days the gardener at the Great House. She became blind, but, old as she was, retained her activity and impetuosity of nature. [Sidenote: ILLIDGE AND THE ROBBER]