It was well known that Lady Lechester owned large estates, and they were naturally reported to be even larger than they were. It was whispered abroad that, under careful nursing, certain incumbrances had been paid off, and that the rent-roll was now something extremely heavy even for England, the land of long rent-rolls. People who had previously fought a little shy of the handsome heir, and asked hard terms to discount his paper, now pressed forward, and were anxious to obtrude their services. At the clubs, persons who had affected to ignore the richest man in the world as a matter of principle, on account of his ignoble descent, now began to acknowledge his existence, and to extend the tips of their aristocratic fingers. It was remembered that the doubts and difficulties which had beset his claim to the vast Stirmingham estate like a dark cloud, had of late in great part cleared away. The family council had “burst up,” and there were really no competitors in the field. Marese Baskette, Esq, in the course of a year or two, so soon as the law affairs could be settled, would be the richest man in the world. At the clubs they freely discussed his wealth. When realised it would put the Rothschilds, and Coutts, and Barings, and all the other famous names—the Astors of New York and even the princes of India—into the shade. Stirmingham, the busiest city in England, surrounded with a triple belt of iron furnaces, undermined with hundreds of miles of coal galleries, was it possible to estimate the value of that wonderful place? Why, the estate in the time of old Sternhold Baskette was roughly put at twenty millions sterling—that was thirty years ago or more—what must it be worth now? There really was no calculating it. Suppose he got but one quarter of what he was entitled to—say property worth only five millions—there was a fine thing. What on earth had the ladies been thinking of all these years that they had not secured so rich a prize? Lady Lechester was not a little envied. County families and others, from whom she had kept aloof for years, overlooked the disrespect, and called upon her with their congratulations. Invitations poured in upon her; the whole county talked of nothing else but Lady Lechester’s wedding; even the great fire was forgotten. In London circles the name of Agnes Lechester, which from long retirement had almost dropped out of memory, was revived, and the old story of the attachment to the dragoon and his untimely end in the East, was dug up and sent on its way from mansion to mansion. It was nothing but pride that made her refuse poor De Warren who was a handsomer man than Baskette, and came of quite as good a family as her own. However, fortune seemed to favour these creatures—why, she must be five-and-thirty; five-and-thirty, ay, closer on forty; older than Marese—much older.