According to Miss Blandy's _Own Account_, it was not until their second meeting at Lord Mark Kerr's in the summer of 1747 that the patrician but unattractive Cranstoun declared his passion. She also states that in doing so he referred to an illicit entanglement with a Scottish lady, falsely claiming to be his wedded wife, and that she (Mary) accepted him provisionally, "till the invalidity of the pretended marriage appeared to the whole world." But here, as we shall presently see, the fair authoress rather antedates the fact. Next day Cranstoun, formally proposing to the old folks for their daughter's hand, was received by them literally with open arms, henceforth to be treated as a son; and when, after a six weeks' visit to Bath in company with his gouty kinsman, the captain returned to Henley, it was as the guest of his future father-in-law, of whose "pious fraud" in the matter of the £10,000 dowry; despite his shrewdness, he was unaware. Though the sycophantic attorney would probably as lief have housed a monkey of lineage so distinguished, old Mrs. Blandy seems really to have adored the foxy little captain for his _beaux yeux_. Doubtless he fooled the dame to the top of her bent. For a time things went pleasantly enough in the old house by the bridge. The town-clerk boasted of his noble quarry, the mother enjoyed for the first time the company and conversation of a man of fashion, and Mary renewed amid the Henley meadows those paradisiacal experiences which formerly she had shared with faithless Captain D----. But once more her happiness received an unexpected check. Lord Mark Kerr, a soldier and a gentleman, becoming aware of the footing upon which his graceless grand-nephew was enjoying the Blandys' hospitality, wrote to the attorney the amazing news that his daughter's lover already had a wife and child living in Scotland.