This blushing young lady is Charlotte Trevanion, depicted here in a high-waisted dress accessorized with a pearl necklace and drop earrings. Her hair falls over one shoulder, the rest drawn back in a plaited knot secured with a gold and pearl comb and dressed with a pink ribbon and braided hair bandeau.*Charlotte Hosea was born in 1782; her father died that same year. At the age of eighteen, she married John Trevanion Purnell Bettesworth-Trevanion, a Cornish politician and MP. Described as ''a complete man of fashion . . . without anything frivolous or effeminate'', Trevanion was then just 21 years old. The young couple lived at Caerhays in Cornwall, home to the Trevanion family since the 14th century. But Charlotte''s husband had ambitions so he commissioned the renowned architect John Nash to build him a Gothic style castle, no expense spared. Work began in 1807 and did not complete until 1810 by which time Travanion was stony broke. Meantime Charlotte had given birth to five...