He knew it all to a fraction.

She had spread for herself, or some one else had spread for her, a report that her wealth was almost unlimited; but the forty thousand pounds was a fact, and any such innocent fault as that little fiction might well be forgiven to a woman endorsed with such substantial virtues.

And she was handsome too.

Mr Cheesacre, as he regarded her matured charms, sometimes felt that he should have been smitten even without the forty thousand pounds.

"By George! there's flesh and blood," he had once said to his friend Bellfield before he had begun to suspect that man's treachery.
His admiration must then have been sincere, for at that time the forty thousand pounds was not an ascertained fact.