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 officer openly sought the granddaughter of Akil ud Dowlah, but as his honoured wife. Whatever might have been the bukshi's real feelings, he was persuaded to allow of a nikah marriage, and Khair un Nissa became a happy bride. Naturally the marriage gave rise to a great deal of criticism. Captain Kirkpatrick came through it with- out reproach or blame, his wife's mother testifying of her own free will to the fact that the marriage was entirely of her daughter's seeking.

A child was born of the union, afterwards well known as Kitty Kirkpatrick. Cariyle has immortalised her as Blumine in his 'Sartor Resartus.' He was acquainted with her when she was a girl, and he describes her as having soft brown eyes and floods of bronzed hair ; she was low-voiced and languid, an interesting picture of the semi-Oriental Englishwoman.

Kitty inherited 50,OOOZ. from her father, and married Captain James Winsloe Phillips of the 7th Hussars. She became the mother of several children, to whom she was devoted, and she died at Torquay in 1836.

Captain Elers of the 12th Regiment went home to England on the same ship with Miss Kitty Kirkpatrick and her brother. He thus describes them in his 'Memoirs' :

'A Mrs. Ure, the wife of a Dr. Ure, of Hyderabad, had two fine children of three and four years old under her charge, the children of Colonel Kirkpatrick, of Hyderabad, by a princess, to whom report said he was married. Her Highness would not part with her children until 10,OOO L. had been settled upon each of them. They were a boy and a girl, and they had a faithful old black man, who was very fond of them, to attend upon them. Mrs. Ure had an infant of only a few months old, nursed by a young native woman, immensely fat, and she had also a young European woman as her maid.'