it round Wanchester:
the corn-factors, the brewers, the horse-dealers, and saddlers, all
held it a laudable thing, and one which was to be rejoiced in on
abstract grounds, as showing the value of an aristocracy in a free
country like England; the blacksmith in the hamlet of Diplow felt that
a good time had come round; the wives of laboring men hoped their
nimble boys of ten or twelve would be taken into employ by the
gentlemen in livery; and the farmers about Diplow admitted, with a
tincture of bitterness and reserve that a man might now again perhaps
have an easier market or exchange for a rick of old hay or a wagon-load
of straw. If such were the hopes of low persons not in society, it may
be easily inferred that their betters had better reasons for
satisfaction, probably connected with the pleasures of life rather than
its business. Marriage, however, must be considered as coming under
both heads; and just as when a visit of majesty is announced, the dream
of knighthood or a baronetcy is to be found under various municipal
nightcaps, so the news in question raised a floating indeterminate
vision of marriage in several well-bred imaginations.

The news was that Diplow Hall, Sir Hugo Mallinger's place, which had
for a couple of years turned its white window-shutters in a painfully
wall-eyed manner on its fine elms and beeches, its lilied pool and
grassy acres specked with deer, was being prepared for a tenant, and
was for the rest of the summer and through the hunting season to be
inhabited in a fitting style both as to house and stable. But not by
Sir Hugo himself: by his nephew, Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt, who was
presumptive heir to the baronetcy, his uncle's marriage having produced
nothing but girls. Nor was this the only contingency with which fortune
flattered young Grandcourt, as he was pleasantly called; for while the
chance of the baronetcy came through his father, his mother had given a
baronial streak to his blood, so that if certain intervening persons
slightly painted in the middle distance died, he would become a baron
and peer of this realm.

It is the uneven allotment of nature that the male bird alone has the
tuft, but we have not yet followed the advice of hasty philosophers who
would have us copy nature entirely in these matters; and if Mr.
Mallinger Grandcourt became a baronet or a peer, his wife would share
the title--which in addition to his actual fortune was certainly a
reason why that wife, be