Upon the genuine delight which Antonia experienced when the full glory of British luxury, the garnered wealth of a thousand years, burst upon her, it is not necessary here to dilate, nor, after a year’s continental travel, upon the rejoicings which followed the birth of Mr. Courtenay Frankston Neuchamp at the hall of his sires. His uncle immediately foresaw a full and pleasing occupation provided for his remaining years, in securing whatever lands in the vicinity of Neuchampstead might chance to be purchasable. They would be needed for the due territorial dignity of a gentleman, who, upon his accession to the estate, would probably have thirty or forty thousand a year additional to the present rental, to spend on one of the oldest properties in the kingdom. ‘He himself,’ he said, ‘was unhappily a bachelor. He humbly trusted so to remain, but he was proud and pleased to think that the old House would once more be worthily represented. He had never seen the remotest possibility of such a state of matters taking place in his own time, and had never dreamed, therefore, of the smallest self-assertion. ‘The case was now widely different. The cadet of the House, against, he would frankly own, his counsel and opinion, had chosen to seek his fortune on distant shores, as had many younger sons unavailingly. He had not only found it, but had returned, moreover, with the traditional Princess, proper to the King’s younger son, in all legends and romances. In his charming sister he recognised a princess in her own right, and an undeniable confirmation of his firmly-held though not expressed opinion, that his brother Ernest’s enthusiasm had always been tempered by a foundation of prudence and unerring taste.’ Again in his native land, in his own county, Antonia had to submit to the lionisation of her husband, who came to be looked upon as a sort of compromise between Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh, with a dash of Francis Drake. The very handsome income which the flourishing property of Rainbar and Mildool, _cum_ Back-blocks A to M, and the unwearied rainy seasons and high markets, permitted him to draw, was magnified tenfold. His liberal expenditure gratified the taste of the lower class, among whom legends involving romantic discoveries and annexations of goldfields received ready credence. Mr. Ernest Neuchamp was courteously distinguished by the county magnates, popular among the country gentlemen who had been his friends and those of his family from his youth, and the idol of the peasantry, who instinctively discerned, as do children and pet animals, that he viewed them with a sympathetic and considerate regard.