accumulations of his minority were gone; and his estate, which, when
he came of age, was scarcely three thousand a year, but entirely at
his own disposal, was mortgaged up to its eyes.

His friends began to shake their heads and call him "poor fellow;"
but, with all his wild faults, Leopold Travers had been wholly pure
from the two vices out of which a man does not often redeem himself.
He had never drunk and he had never gambled. His nerves were not
broken, his brain was not besotted. There was plenty of health in him
yet, mind and body. At the critical period of his life he married for
love, and his choice was a most felicitous one. The lady had no
fortune; but though handsome and high-born, she had no taste for
extravagance, and no desire for other society than that of the man she
loved. So when he said, "Let us settle in the country and try our
best to live on a few hundreds, lay by, and keep the old place out of
the market," she consented with a joyful heart: and marvel it was to
all how this wild Leopold Travers did settle down; did take to
cultivating his home farm with his men from sunrise to sunset like a
common tenant-farmer; did contrive to pay the interest on the
mortgages, and keep his head above water. After some years of
pupilage in this school of thrift, during which his habits became
formed and his whole character braced, Leopold Travers suddenly found
himself again rich, through the wife whom he had so prudently married
without other dower than her love and her virtues. Her only brother,
Lord Eagleton, a Scotch peer, had been engaged in marriage to a young
lady, considered to be a rare prize in the lottery of wedlock. The
marriage was broken off under very disastrous circumstances; but the
young lord, good-looking and agreeable, was naturally expected to seek
speedy consolation in some other alliance. Nevertheless he did not do
so: he became a confirmed invalid, and died single, leaving to his