He was but twenty when he succeeded his father, and was an only child, clever, keen and ambitious.

In his twenty-first year he married Lady Helena Brooklyn, the daughter of one of the proudest peers in Britain.

There lay before him a fair and useful life.

His wife was an elegant, accomplished woman, who knew the world and its ways--who had, from her earliest childhood, been accustomed to the highest and best society.
Lord Earle often told her, laughingly, that she would have made an excellent embassadress--her manners were so bland and gracious; she had the rare gift of appearing interested in every one and in everything.
With such a wife at the head of his establishment, Lord Earle hoped for great things.

He looked to a prosperous career as a statesman; no honors seemed to him too high, no ambition too great.