And she--Katharine--his adoration--she was of this world, and yet not of it so much as she might be; held not that queenly position in it which she might hold, were circumstances different. It would have taken a mind much less acute than Robert Streightley's to perceive at once the influence which the possession of wealth had among those who affected to despise it. In an instant he saw--few so rapidly--how many of the new society into which he had been introduced, while merely electro-plated and veneered, were endeavouring to pass themselves off as the genuine article; and he ascribed, correctly enough, the sneers at money, in which most members of the society indulged, to their lack of it. Why should he not be the means of giving her the position which she would so thoroughly adorn? She looked a duchess; why should he not give her the power of gratifying the tastes of a duchess? Robert Streightley, constantly engaged in the accumulation of money, had given very little thought to the amount that he had accumulated. Confident in the security of his investments, he left the heap to gather in rolling; his simple life and the even more simple life led by his mother and sister in the Brixton villa were provided for at a comparatively infinitesimal cost; and of the bulk of his possessions he had taken little heed, knowing that it was there "to the good." But recently, within the last few days, he had looked through his accounts, and found that he was the possessor of what would be considered, even in "the City," to be a large fortune. Money he had in funds, and stocks, and securities of all kinds; money in ships bound on antipodean voyages, and in semi-cleared Canadian forests; money in loans to Egyptian viceroys and Nicaraguan republics; money in an English estate, "all that house and estate known as 'Middlemeads,' in the county of Bucks, with five hundred acres of parklike land, well-preserved coverts, lake with fishing-temple, large stabling, forcing-houses, hothouses, orangery, delightfully situate on the brow of Holcomb Hill, with the silver Thames winding in the distance," as it was described in the auctioneer's advertisement. The auctioneer, whose descriptive powers are here recorded, had not the opportunity of bringing this "lot" to the hammer; for finding the previous bidding dull, Robert Streightley, to whom the estate had reverted on the foreclosure of a mortgage which he held upon it, determined to withdraw it from public competition, wisely thinking that he could sell it a better bargain to some private purchaser. When the bold idea of asking for Miss Guyon's hand first entered his head, the recollection of this property flashed upon him at once. He had never seen the place, but he knew from his agent that it was essentially a gentleman's house, and that the entire estate was large, productive, and one of which any one might be proud. "Mrs. Streightley of Middlemeads;" "Middlemeads, August;" "Mrs. R. Streightley