But proud as Sir John Spencer was of his money-bags, he was prouder still of his only child, Elizabeth, heiress to his vast wealth, who, as she grew to womanhood, developed a beauty of face and figure and graces of mind which pleased the merchant more than all his gold.  So fair was she that Queen Elizabeth, on one of her many progressions through the city, attracted by her sparkling eyes and beautiful face at a Cheapside window, stopped her carriage, summoned her to her presence, and, patting her blushing cheeks, vowed that she had “the sweetest face I have seen in my City of London.”

That a maiden so dowered with charms and riches should have an army of suitors in her train was inevitable.  A lovely wife who would one day inherit nearly a million of money was surely the most covetable prize in England; and, it is said, the bewitching heiress had more than one coronet laid at her feet before she had well left her school-books.  But to all these offers, dazzling enough to a merchant’s daughter, Elizabeth turned a deaf, if dainty ear.  “It is not me they want,” she would laughingly say, “but my father’s money.  I shall live and die, like the good Queen, my namesake, a maid.”

And so has many another much-sought maiden said in the pride of an untouched heart; but to them as to her the “Prince Charming,” before whom all her defences crumble, comes at last.  In Elizabeth Spencer’s case, the conquering prince was William, second Lord Compton, one of the handsomest, most accomplished and fascinating young men in London.  In person, as in position, he was alike unimpeachable—­an ideal suitor to win even the richest heiress in England; and it is little wonder that the heart of the tradesman’s daughter began to flutter, and her pretty cheeks to flame when this gallant, whose conquests at the Royal Court itself were notorious, began to pay marked homage to her charms.

That his reputation in the field of love was none of the best, that he was as prodigal as he was poor, mattered little to her—­probably such defects made him all the more romantic in her eyes, and his attentions all the more welcome.  To Sir John, however, who was even more jealous of his treasure than of all his gold, the young lord’s reputation and, above all, his poverty were fatal flaws in any would-be son-in-law of his.  As soon as he realised the danger he put every obstacle in the way of his daughter’s silly romance, even to the extent, it is said, of locking her in her room, and closing his door in the face of her lover.  “If your reputation, my lord, were equal to your rank,” he told him in no ambiguous terms; “and if your fortune matched your family, I should have naught to say against your suit.  But as it is, I tell you frankly, I would rather see my girl dead than wedded to such as you.”