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own plan, and the youth accepted it as suiting his, to get away, 
-to make a start, and let the result follow. Then, it may be 
remembered, that the four advisers in council were—Miss 
Linley, herself just seventeen, Miss Sheridan about the same 
age, and her sister, the writer of the letter with this story, only 
thirteen, and the penniless lover-brother, the chief actor and 
worker, but twenty. Yet the biographies write glibly of these 
events, without explanation, as if these young things were fully 
grown and had some little common sease, almost as if the affair 
were blameless and a worthy example for others. As soon as 
they were well abroad the chivalrous and disinterested protecter 
became “more explicit” mildly writes the lady sister, 
“degenerated into a mere selfish lover” as Moore plainly 
puts it, and so pressed the usual argument that after the step 
they had taken she could not possibly appear again in England but 
as his wife, or as the latest biography elaborates it, ‘the same 
eloquence which had been used to persuade her to leave Bath 
was employed to persuade her to become his wife in order 
to silence the tongue of scandal.” Accordingly, continues the 
same, but without the slightest evidence, “they were married 
9 by a priest well-known for such occasions.” It can be said 
with equal certainty that they were not. Dr. Watkins, in 1817, 
says distinctly there was no marriage at this time and this will be 
borne out by facts. Whatever may have exactly happened the 
poor young girl was strong enough to resist all blarney, and on 
reaching Lille carried out her plan and got herself deposited as 
a boarder in a convent, and so at once was safe from further 
persistence Here in a place so strange and new and in a 
foreign unknown country she became ill naturally enough and 
$0 next, passed first to the professional care and then to the 
house and protection of an English medico resident at Lille. 
As soon as the elopement was discovered the landlord of the 
house in which the Sheridans lived went off at break of day to 
inform Charles Sheridan at his retreat in the country, Mr. 
