The Chaste Diana

TWAS a moving day for her Grace of Queensbury and Diana when the Duke removed her to his fine house in Pall Mall, for not only did it cause both a pang to part after so many mon...

THE scene is Mr. Rich’s parlour once more and a trembling suppliant and a lenient judge, for Diana was all but on her knees to Mrs. Scawen without whose countenance she could sc...

THE playhouse in Portugal Street was rocking to an applause so frantic that it seemed as though the walls would fall like those of Jericho. Miss Polly, Miss Lucy and all the com...

THEY entered, his Lordship with an excess of gallantry, if such can be where a fine woman and a Duchess is concerned, and her Ladyship in a prodigious hoop and scarf all ruffles...

THE Duke, on leaving my Lord Baltimore with his former inamorata, strode down into the street, and stood for a moment in deep thought. ’Twas Mr. Rich was in his mind—that and th...

A FORTNIGHT later, Catherine Duchess of Queensbury—a very imperious and beautiful lady, was seated in her own library, and her companion was his Grace of Bolton. But a few words...

IN Queensbury House, the Duchess sat that night in her library to hear the story from Bolton. Diana slept in her own room, worn out and wearied beyond all power of speech or eve...

WHEN Diana left the playhouse on the Saturday, a heavy rain was falling through the grimy dark, and she muffled her head in her hood and stepped swiftly from the door into the c...

“THE fair widow,” as my Lord Baltimore had complimented her, the Lady Fanny Armine, sat next morning in _negligée_ in her fine boudoir in Pall Mall, surrounded by all the fashio...

IT was in the great white and gold withdrawing room of Queensbury House that her Grace discoursed that Sunday night to her friends and partisans on the insult received from the...

THE town rang and buzzed to some purpose next day and the wits were busy indeed. ’Twas an opportunity to be clever they could by no means miss and some of the lampoons might hav...

TWAS at this point that life became very difficult for both Miss Polly and Madam Diana. Her company at the playhouse was not what she would have chose, to say no more, and Mrs....

CATHERINE QUEENSBURY was near beside them before the two looked up from their transport of joy and grief. ’Twas in Diana’s character that she drew not her hands from him away as...

DIANA still bound by the Duchess’s command sat where my Lady Fanny left her, her mind full of what had passed. So that was the story. ’Twas a chivalrous one to take a girl’s fan...

THE greatest lady in England, Queen Caroline, sat in her apartment in Kensington Palace on Sunday night a week later, drinking her chocolate, with Lord Hervey and the Princess E...

TWAS a se’nnight later and Diana, recovered but pale enough still, sat in the Duchess’s library and tried to read in a book but could not, so pressing was her own history.

IT was the winter season of the year 1727 and the great Mr. Rich, patentee and manager of the playhouse in Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields; was seated in his own parlour w...

MRS. DIANA had much to consider as the chairmen bumped her along the ill-lit streets leading to Charing Cross. To be candid, she had been swayed by an impulse in thus presenting...

TIS known to all the world that the success of “The Beggar’s Opera” was prodigious. Never had such been known. As my Lady Fanny observed in a full conclave of ladies at her pool...

NOW this is the story of this woman—Diana Beswick,—who would have told her own story if she could, and indeed had the zest for it, for she pondered often over her life, finding...

Her beautiful eyes grew large and dark with thought. The minuet,—the white and gold walls lifted and dispersed like dreams. She saw the hero of her youth— Had he waited, had he...

She was took back in a coach to Queensbury House, and the Duchess being at Court heard nothing of the affair until next day, and then sent very obliging inquiries.