But it soon appeared that there was no one to make objections.  Louis, the lover, had no living relative nearer than cousins.  His father, a barrister of repute, had died a widower, and had left the money which he had made to an only child.  The head of the family was a first cousin who lived in Cornwall on a moderate property, a very good sort of stupid fellow, as Louis said, who would be quite indifferent as to any marriage that his cousin might make.  No man could be more independent or more clearly justified in pleasing himself than was this lover.  And then he himself proposed that the second daughter, Nora, should come and live with them in London.  What a lover to fall suddenly from the heavens into such a dovecote!

‘I haven’t a penny-piece to give either of them,’ said Sir Rowley.

‘It is my idea that girls should not have fortunes,’ said Trevelyan.  ’At any rate, I am quite sure that men should never look for money.  A man must be more comfortable, and, I think, is likely to be more affectionate, when the money has belonged to himself.’

Sir Rowley was a high-minded gentleman, who would have liked to have handed over a few thousand pounds on giving up his daughters; but, having no thousands of pounds to hand over, he could not but admire the principles of his proposed son-in-law.  As it was about time for him to have his leave of absence, he and sundry of the girls went to England with Mr Trevelyan, and the wedding was celebrated in London by the Rev. Oliphant Outhouse, of Saint Diddulph-in-the-East, who had married Sir Rowley’s sister.  Then a small house was taken and furnished in Curzon Street, Mayfair, and the Rowleys went back to the seat of their government, leaving Nora, the second girl, in charge of her elder sister.

The Rowleys had found, on reaching London, that they had lighted upon a pearl indeed.  Louis Trevelyan was a man of whom all people said all good things.  He might have been a fellow of his college had he not been a man of fortune.  He might already, so Sir Rowley was told, have been in Parliament, had he not thought it to be wiser to wait awhile.  Indeed, he was very wise in many things.  He had gone out on his travels thus young, not in search of excitement, to kill beasts, or to encounter he knew not what novelty and amusement, but that he might see men and know the world.  He had been on his travels for more than a year when the winds blew him to the Mandarins.  Oh, how blessed were the winds!  And, moreover, Sir Rowley found that his son-in-law was well spoken of at the clubs by those who had known him during his university career, as a man popular as well as wise, not a book-worm, or a dry philosopher, or a prig.  He could talk on all subjects, was very generous, a man sure to be honoured and respected; and then such a handsome, manly fellow, with short brown hair, a nose divinely chiselled, an Apollo’s mouth, six feet high, with shoulders and legs and arms in proportion—­a pearl of pearls!  Only, as Lady Rowley was the first to find out, he liked to have his own way.