The sober application of William Vane had been a by word with the embryo barristers around; Judge Vane, they ironically called him; and they strove ineffectually to allure him away to idleness and pleasure.
But young Vane was ambitious, and he knew that on his own talents and exertions must depend his own rising in the world.

He was of excellent family, but poor, counting a relative in the old Earl of Mount Severn.
The possibility of his succeeding to the earldom never occurred to him, for three healthy lives, two of them young, stood between him and the title.

Yet those have died off, one of apoplexy, one of fever, in Africa, the third boating at Oxford; and the young Temple student, William Vane, suddenly found himself Earl of Mount Severn, and the lawful possessor of sixty thousand a year.
His first idea was, that he should never be able to spend the money; that such a sum, year by year, could _not_ be spent.

It was a wonder his head was not turned by adulation at the onset, for he was courted, flattered and caressed by all classes, from a royal duke downward.

He became the most attractive man of his day, the lion in society; for independent of his newly-acquired wealth and title, he was of distinguished appearance and fascinating manners.