enter into description
of the life and movements of the place, without its curiously involving
some connection with the huge wealth of it--with its influence, its
rise, its swelling, or waning.

"Somehow one cannot free one's self from it. This is the age of
wealth and invention--but of wealth before all else. Sometimes one is
tired--tired of it."

"You would not be tired of it if--well, if you were I, said Lady
Anstruthers rather pathetically.

"Perhaps not," Betty answered. "Perhaps not."

She herself had seen people who were not tired of it in the sense in
which she was--the men and women, with worn or intently anxious faces,
hastening with the crowds upon the pavements, all hastening somewhere,
in chase of that small portion of the wealth which they earned by their
labour as their daily share; the same men and women surging towards
elevated railroad stations, to seize on places in the homeward-bound
trains; or standing in tired-looking groups, waiting for the approach of
an already overfull street car, in which they must be packed together,
and swing to the hanging straps, to keep upon their feet. Their way of
being weary of it would be different from hers, they would be weary
only of hearing of the mountains of it which rolled themselves up, as it
seemed, in obedience to some irresistible, occult force.

On the day after Stornham village had learned that her ladyship and Miss
Vanderpoel had actually gone to London, the dignified firm of Townlinson
& Sheppard received a visit which created some slight sensation in
their establishment, though it had not been entirely unexpected. It had,
indeed, been heralded by a note from Miss Vanderpoel herself, who
had asked that the appointment be made. Men of Messrs. Townlinson &
Sheppard's indubitable rank in their profession could not fail to know
the significance of the Vanderpoel name. They knew and understood its
weight perfectly well. When their client had married one of Reuben
Vanderpoel's daughters, they had felt that extraordinary good fortune
had befallen him and his estate. Their private opinion had been that Mr.
Vanderpoel's knowledge of his son-in-law must have been limited, or
that he had curiously lax American views of paternal duty. The firm was
highly reputable, long established strictly conservative, and somewhat
insular in its point of view. It did not understand, or seek
to understand, America. It had excellent reasons for thoroughly
understanding Sir