Such were the charms and talent that the child developed that, by the time she came to her eighteenth birthday she was carried off to London to appear at Covent Garden Theatre as Lady Townley in The Provoked Husband; and the general verdict was that no such clever acting had been seen since Miss Farren was lured from the stage by a coronet.  And not only did she create an immediate sensation by her acting; her beauty, which a contemporary writer tells us, “combined the stateliness of Juno with the gentler and beauty of a Venus,” made her a Queen of Hearts as of actresses.  So seductive a prize was not likely to be long left to adorn the stage; and although Miss Brunton consistently turned a blind eye to many a seductive offer, she had to succumb when his Lordship of Craven joined the queue of her courtiers.  Four years of stage sovereignty and then the coronet of a Countess; such was the record of this daughter of a strolling player, whose greatest ambition had been to provide food enough for his hungry family.  Lady Craven lived nearly sixty years to enjoy her dignities and splendours, surviving long enough to see her grandson take his place as third Earl of his line.

[Illustration:  HARRIET, DUCHESS OF ST ALBANS]

For twenty years the English stage had no star to compare in brilliancy with Harriet Mellon, whose life-story is one of the most romantic in theatrical annals.  From the January day in 1795 when she made her bow on the Drury Lane stage as Lydia in The Rivals, to her farewell appearance in February 1815, a month after she had become a wife, her career was one unbroken sequence of triumphs.  To quote the words of a chronicler,

     She shone supreme, splendid, unapproachable, not only by
     her brilliant genius, but by her beauty and social
     fascinations.

That she revelled in her conquests is certain; for to not one of her army of wooers, many of them men of high rank, would she deign more than a smile, until old Thomas Coutts came, with all the impetus of his money-bags behind him, and literally swept her off her feet The lady who had spurned coronets could not resist a million of money, qualified though it was by the admiration of a senile lover.

Nor did she ever have cause to regret her choice; for no husband could have been more devoted or more lavish than this shabby old banker who used to chuckle when he was taken for a beggar, and alms were thrust into his receptive hand.  Wonderful stories are told of Mr Coutts’ generosity to his beautiful wife, for whom nothing that money could buy was too good.

One day—­it is Captain Gronow who tells the tale—­Mr Hamlet, a jeweller, came to his house, bringing for the banker’s inspection a magnificent diamond-cross which had been worn on the previous day (of George IV’s Coronation) by no less a personage than the Duke of York.  At sight of its rainbow fires Mrs Coutts exclaimed:  “How happy I should be with such a splendid piece of jewellery!” “What is it worth?” enquired her husband.  “I could not possibly part with it for less than L15,000,” the jeweller replied.  “Bring me a pen and ink,” was the only remark of the doting banker who promptly wrote a cheque for the money, and beamed with delight as he placed the jewel on his wife’s bosom.