Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/198

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS Notwithstanding his eloquent appeal Miss Glynne refused him, and it was not until the following June at Lady Shelley's garden party that she accepted him. About the same time her sister Mary became engaged to the fourth Lord Lyttelton.

When the two bridegrooms arrived at Hawarden for the wedding, they walked down the village street, "Gladstone, tall and upright in figure, pale and strong in face, with dark flashing eyes like an eagle's; Lord Lyttelton, something of a rough and awkward youth of twenty-one, with rugged features, massive head, and intellectual brow; some one said, gazing at Gladstone, 'Isn't it easy to see which is the lord?'"

The double wedding took place on 25th July 1839, at Hawarden Parish Church, and was made the occasion for much festivity and rejoicing on the part of the family and their friends, and of the humble inhabitants of the district. Sir Francis Doyle was Gladstone's best man, and he wrote a poem for the occasion entitled "To Two Sister Brides," of which the following stanzas refer to Catherine:

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