He went to bed, proud of this triumph, and was awakened next morning by a challenge.  He took for his second Giles Rawlings, a man of intrigue, and a deep player.  Howard took Dillon, who was dexterous and brave, much of a gentleman, and, unfortunately, an intimate friend to Rawlings.

In this duel fortune did not side with the votaries of love poor Rawlings was left stone dead; and Jermyn, having received three wounds, was carried to his uncle’s, with very little signs of life.

While the report of this event engaged the courtiers according to their several interests, the Chevalier de Grammont was informed by Jones, his friend, his confidant, and his rival, that there was another gentleman very attentive to Mrs. Middleton:  this was Montagu, no very dangerous rival on account of his person, but very much to be feared for his assiduity, the acuteness of his wit, and for some other talents which are of importance, when a man is once permitted to display them.

There needed not half so much to bring into action all the Chevalier’s vivacity, in point of competition:  vexation awakened in him whatever expedients the desire of revenge, malice, and experience, could suggest, for troubling the designs of a rival, and tormenting a mistress.  His first intention was to return her letters, and demand his presents, before he began to tease her; but, rejecting this project, as too weak a revenge for the injustice done him, he was upon the point of conspiring the destruction of poor Mrs. Middleton, when, by accident, he met with Miss Hamilton.  From this moment ended all his resentment against Mrs. Middleton, and all his attachment to Miss Warmestre:  no longer was he inconstant:  no longer were his wishes fluctuating:  this object fixed them all; and, of all his former habits, none remained, except uneasiness and jealousy.

Here his first care was to please; but he very plainly saw, that to succeed he must act quite in a different manner to that which he had been accustomed to.

The family of the Hamiltons, being very numerous, lived in a large and commodious house, near the court:  the Duke of Ormond’s family was continually with them; and here persons of the greatest distinction in London, constantly met:  the Chevalier de Grammont was here received in a manner agreeable to his merit and quality, and was astonished that he had spent so much time in other places; for, after having made this acquaintance, he was desirous of no other.

All the world agreed that Miss Hamilton was worthy of the most ardent and sincere affection:  nobody could boast a nobler birth, nothing was more charming than her person.

[Elizabeth, sister of the author of these Memoirs, and daughter of Sir George Hamilton, fourth son of James, the first Earl of Abercorn, by Mary, third daughter of Thomas, Viscount Thurles, eldest son of Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormond, and sister to James, the first Duke of Ormond.  She married Philibert, Count of Grammont, the hero of these Memoirs, by whom she had two daughters:  Claude Charlotte, married, 3rd April, 1694, to Henry, Earl of Stafford; and another, who became superior, or abbess, of the Canonesses in Lorraine.]

CHAPTER SEVENTH.