The village folk,
however, knew that he was confoundedly dipped; that he was sometimes
alarmingly pestered by duns, and had got so accustomed to hear that his
uncle, the earl, was in his last sickness, and his cousin, the next
heir, dead, when another week disclosed that neither one nor the other
was a bit worse than usual, that they began to think that Devereux's
turn might very possibly never come at all. Besides, the townspeople had
high notions of some of their belles, and not without reason. There was
Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, for instance, with more than fourteen
thousand pounds to her fortune, and Lilias Walsingham, who would inherit
her mother's money, and the good rector's estate of twelve hundred a
year beside, and both with good blood in their veins, and beautiful
princesses too. However, in those days there was more parental despotism
than now. The old people kept their worldly wisdom to themselves, and
did not take the young into a scheming partnership; and youth and
beauty, I think, were more romantic, and a great deal less venal.
Such being the old countess's programme--a plan, according to her
lights, grand and generous, she might have dawdled over it, for a good
while, for she did not love trouble.
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