Besides, the townspeople had high notions of some of their belles, and not without reason.

There was Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, for instance, with more than fourteen thousand pounds to her fortune, and Lilias Walsingham, who would inherit her mother's money, and the good rector's estate of twelve hundred a year beside, and both with good blood in their veins, and beautiful princesses too.

However, in those days there was more parental despotism than now.

The old people kept their worldly wisdom to themselves, and did not take the young into a scheming partnership; and youth and beauty, I think, were more romantic, and a great deal less venal.
Such being the old countess's programme--a plan, according to her lights, grand and generous, she might have dawdled over it, for a good while, for she did not love trouble.

It was not new; the airy castle had been some years built, and now, in an unwonted hurry, she wished to introduce the tenant to the well-aired edifice, and put him in actual possession.