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 the beauties during their first London season. Scotch and Engllsh peers had sighed around them, but no eligible offers had come. Mrs. Gunning took her daughters to Bath, and in a few months they were back again in London in renewed beauty. Mrs. Montagu speaks of seeing these " goddesses of Gunnings wrapped in quilted satin pelisses, their lovely throats hid by rich furs, which set off the brilliancy of their complexions. In this garb the beauties took their noble admirers by storm, and fairly beat down every remnant of prudence."

The Duke of Hamilton was a well-known man about town, of no enviable reputation, fond of gambling and late hours. Horace Walpole says: "that the Duke having fallen in love with Elizabeth Gunning at a masquerade six weeks ago, made such violent love to her to-night, at Lord Chesterfield's, that he saw neither the bank nor his own cards, which were three hundred each, and soon lost a thousand."

Elizabeth Gunning kept cool; she drew the Duke on, bets were freely exchanged on the issue, but finally, one evening, when he found himself alone with her, his ardour grew so great that he insisted that the marriage should take place at once. So it did at half -past twelve, at midnight, on the 14th February, 1752, at May fair Chapel. No wedding ring was procurable at that hour, and,