At this moment she was gazing at the north with a singular intensity of expression, and when England had disappeared in its wrappings of mist, smiling and satisfied she triumphantly wagged her foot; a foot so long and so arched that a kitten might easily run about on it.... She crossed the bridge and went to lean her elbow on the bow of the ship. Had she a presentiment that her departure would be definitive, eternal, and that she would never more behold the green forest trees of Chevening or the fine equipages of Bond Street? Lady Hester Stanhope was born on March 12, 1776, of the marriage of Hester, sister of William Pitt, with Charles, Lord Mahon, afterwards third Earl Stanhope, the frenzied Republican. Her ancestors, both paternal and maternal, were not ordinary people. Her grandfather, Lord Chatham, had, by the side of his great intellectual faculties, the detestable mania of enveloping the most anodyne acts of life with an impenetrable mystery which kept all his entourage on the alert and in suspense. Had he not one day when he was unwell, refused to receive a man, the bearer of urgent news, who insisted on seeing him immediately? After long discussions, the messenger contrived to be introduced into the Minister's room; but the room was darkened and the Minister invisible behind a rampart of screens. New battle to succeed in catching sight of Lord Chatham. At last, when the man had by main force gained this honour, he drew from his pocket a parchment containing the title-deeds of two estates with a rent-roll of £14,000, bequeathed by Sir Edward Pynsent as a proof of his admiration. The property had nearly escaped him. Lady Hester Stanhope, if she did not inherit Burton Pynsent, inherited, at any rate, all these eccentricities of character. As for her other grandfather, he was that second Earl Stanhope who had forbidden his son to powder his hair on the occasion of his presentation at Court, "because," he pretended, "wheat was too dear." So that Lord Mahon went quite simply into the presence of the King with his natural head of hair, that is to say, black as coal and lightened by a white plume, which caused the spiteful tongue of Horace Walpole to remark that "he had been tarred and feathered." This misadventure did not prevent the young man from marrying, the same year, Lady Hester Pitt. The great Chatham entertained the highest opinion of his son-in-law. "The exterior is pleasing," wrote he to Mr. James Grenville, "but it is in looking within that one finds invaluable treasures, a head to imagine, a heart to conceive and an arm to execute all that he can have there which is good, amiable and of good report."