was a remarkably handsome young man, who was well connected, who
had been ninth wrangler at Cambridge, who had already published a
volume of poems, and who possessed 3,000 pounds a year of his own,
arising from various perfectly secure investments, he was not forced
to sigh long in vain. Indeed, the Rowleys, one and all, felt that
providence had been very good to them in sending young Trevelyan
on his travels in that direction, for he seemed to be a very pearl
among men. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley felt that there might
be objections to such a marriage as that proposed to them, raised
by the Trevelyan family. Lady Rowley would not have liked her daughter
to go to England, to be received with cold looks by strangers. But
it soon appeared that there was no one to make objections. Louis,
the lover, had no living relative nearer than cousins. His father,
a barrister of repute, had died a widower, and had left the money
which he had made to an only child. The head of the family was a
first cousin who lived in Cornwall on a moderate property, a very
good sort of stupid fellow, as Louis said, who would be quite
indifferent as to any marriage that his cousin might make. No man
could be more independent or more clearly justified in pleasing
himself than was this lover. And then he himself proposed that the
second daughter, Nora, should come and live with them in London.
What a lover to fall suddenly from the heavens into such a dovecote!

'I haven't a penny-piece to give either of them,' said Sir Rowley.

'It is my idea that girls should not have fortunes,' said Trevelyan.
'At any rate, I am quite sure that men should never look for money.
A man must be more comfortable, and, I think, is likely to be more
affectionate, when the money has belonged to himself.'