My lady's notice of their daughter made her parents think, I suppose, that there was no match that she might not command; she, the heiress of eight thousand a-year, and visiting about among earls and dukes.

So when they came back to their old Westmoreland Hall, and Mark Gibson rode over to offer his hand and his heart, and prospective estate of nine hundred a- year, to his old companion and playfellow, Laurentia, Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo made very short work of it.

They refused him plumply themselves; and when he begged to be allowed to speak to Laurentia, they found some excuse for refusing him the opportunity of so doing, until they had talked to her themselves, and brought up every argument and fact in their power to convince her--a plain girl, and conscious of her plainness--that Mr.Mark Gibson had never thought of her in the way of marriage till after her father's accession to his fortune; and that it was the estate--not the young lady--that he was in love with.

I suppose it will never be known in this world how far this supposition of theirs was true.
My Lady Ludlow had always spoken as if it was; but perhaps events, which came to her knowledge about this time, altered her opinion.

At any rate, the end of it was, Laurentia refused Mark, and almost broke her heart in doing so.