There was Stornham Court in a state of ruin--the estate going to the dogs, the farmhouses tumbling to pieces and he, so to speak, without a sixpence to bless himself with, and head over heels in debt.

Englishmen of the rank which in bygone times had not associated itself with trade had begun at least to trifle with it--to consider its potentialities as factors possibly to be made useful by the aristocracy.

Countesses had not yet spiritedly opened milliners' shops, nor belted Earls adorned the stage, but certain noblemen had dallied with beer and coquetted with stocks.

One of the first commercial developments had been the discovery of America--particularly of New York--as a place where if one could make up one's mind to the plunge, one might marry one's sons profitably.

At the outset it presented a field so promising as to lead to rashness and indiscretion on the part of persons not given to analysis of character and in consequence relying too serenely upon an ingenuousness which rather speedily revealed that it had its limits.