Delilah were met at every turn, while Davids and Johns, eager to be
tempted, and Samsons, stooping to be shorn, hedged the king about with
anything save divinity.

That interesting Frenchman, Comte de Grammont, is accredited with saying
that during his residence in England he knew but one woman in Whitehall
who was both beautiful and pure,--Frances Jennings, maid of honor to
her Grace, the Duchess of York, the Duke of York being James, brother of
Charles II, and heir presumptive to the English throne.

I am proud to say that this beautiful Frances Jennings was my mother's
brother's child. In early youth I had lived in her father's house and was
more her elder brother than her cousin.

I suppose De Grammont was wrong in his sweeping assertion, but he was
right in his judgment of Frances, for though she was admittedly the most
beautiful woman--perhaps I should say girl, for she was very young--at
court, she--. But what befell her is a part of George Hamilton's history
and shall be told all in its turn.

* * * * *

Frances Jennings and her younger sister Sarah, who afterwards became the
first duchess of the present House of Marlborough, were the daughters of
my uncle, Sir Richard Jennings, of Sundridge, near St. Albans. With a
fidelity more creditable to his heart than to his head, Sir Richard had
clung to the cause of Charles I, had lost his entire fortune, and in the
end was forced to bend his neck to the yoke of Cromwell to save his life.
When Charles II returned to the throne, he easily forgave Sir Richard his
enforced apostasy, but failed to return his estates, forgiveness being so