Both mother and daughter were received into his service--Dinah as housekeeper at the Hall, and her daughter Rachel as upper chamber-maid.
"Dinah, at that period, was not more than thirty-four years of age, and for a person of her class was well educated, and uncommonly handsome.

I see you smile, Geoffrey, but such was the fact.
"Rachel, who was just sixteen, was considered a perfect model of female beauty, by all the young fellows who kept Bachelors' Hall with Sir Alexander.

The young Baronet fell desperately in love with his fair dependent, and the girl and her mother entertained hopes that he would make her his wife.

Pride, however, hindered him from making her Lady Moncton.

In order to break the spell that bound him he gave the mother a pretty cottage on the estate, and a few acres of land rent-free, and went up to London to forget, amid its gay scenes, the bright eyes that had sorely wounded his peace.
"Dinah North was not a woman likely to bear with indifference the pangs of disappointed ambition.