Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/138

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS and it is known how he relied and acted on her judgment. Her brother, Lord Melbourne, whose career she followed with the deepest interest,—indeed he had few political thoughts apart from her,—had an equally high estimate of her discernment and sagacity, and he too asked and acted on her counsel. Thus she was, from the first, intimately acquainted with politics and affairs.

She bore Lord Cowper three children—one son and two daughters. The eldest daughter, Emily,—both the girls were beautiful, but especially the younger, Frances,—married, 9th June 1830, Lord Ashley, eldest son of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. All the men, we learn, were in love with Lady Emily, and it took her some time to make up her mind to accept Lord Ashley, who was handsome and attractive. Lady Cowper liked him immensely, indeed she declared in joke that she was more in love with him than her daughter was, and the girl's indecision caused her mother much perturbation of soul. "I shall really break my heart," she said, "if she decides against him." One of Lady Emily Cowper's accomplishments as a girl seems to have been recitation, and Princess Lieven complained how, when on a visit to Panshanger in 1828, one even-106