LOVE STORY OF LORD SALISBURY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6090, 29 January 1898, Page 3

LOVE STORY OF LORD SALISBURY.

The Marquis of Salisbury, when a young man, was a second son with small prospects. He had nothing but his own talents to de- ■ pend on. After his visit to Australia, he fell in love with Goorgiana, daughter of Baron Alderson. Without being an actual beauty, she was a fine and striking girl, tall, fair and of commanding carriage. She had, too, a witty tongue, inherited from her father, a quick intelligence, and was distinctly a young lady to attract attention.., But the then Marquis of Salisbury disapproved of the union. As Miss Lindsay says, iin the Woman at Home, "he thought that the dowerless daughter of a Judge, of whatever excellence in personal character and training, was not a suitable bride for one who bore the proud name of Cecil, and who was a younger son to boot, with practically his fortune to make. He requested his son to avoid Miss Alderson's society for the space of one year. At the end of the period of probation Lord Robert found his love for ' Miss Alderson not abated one whit. He was determined to many her, and at once. " Very well," in effect, said the Marquis, "take your own course, and look to yourself. I shall give you no marrying „ allowance." Lord Cecil found his , ( wayinto the .House of Commons, and made his living by writing for the daily and weekly press. For several years he lived in lodgings off the Strand, manfully-toiling for tlie wife of his choice andthe children which she bore him. Lady Eobert proved an excellent wife. She was quite clever '■ enough to act as her husband's amanuensis, and the literary character of her family and her own early surroundings made her an admirable helpmeet to a man who depended largely upon his pen for his daily bread. The first eight years of her married life were passed in this way, her husband absorbed in his duties in the House of Commons, where he was known as a somewhat audacious, though brilliant, debater, and in journalistic work. He wrote principally for the Times, the Saturday Review said the Morning Chronicle. In 1865 his elder brother died; he became heir to the marquisate ; and thenceforward he had no anxieties about money. Lady Salisbury is now an invalid. " She has spent most of the summer at Hatfield, where her donkey-chair might be daily seen about those beautiful old gardens and avenues which she loves so well, and although now confined to her room, she has^een able to enjoy the usual family gatherings this autumn. Nothing is more beautiful than the devotion of the Prime Minister to his invalid wife, by whose chair he is frequently to be seen walking when able to snatch an hour from the cares of State. Their married life has been one of unruffled serenity, and. in no previous family of the Cecils has historic Hatfield shown a more united and beautiful home life than under the ruleof the present: Marchioness of Salisbury."