It might be assumed that such a material change in his fortunes would be accompanied by a reversal of his habits; this did not take place. On the contrary, Sir Lewis applied himself to his business to an even greater degree. Before he was one-and-thirty, Sir Lewis had been approached by a partnership wishing to purchase the concern, with the result that Sir Lewis was now very rich, indeed. Possessed of a fortune and the leisure with which to enjoy it, Sir Lewis was in want of a wife. All that remained for the completion of Sir Lewis’s happiness was the encouragement of a suitable and willing Lady de Bourgh. Worldly and intelligent as he might have been in other matters, Sir Lewis was not well-schooled in the arts of ladies, and although he was attendant in London society as a bachelor, his serious nature did not endear him to either the society beauties or their mothers. His natural diffidence and disinclination to fashion decreased his chances with the fair sex to the unfortunate extent that, instead of dancing or flirting in the happy manner of the other single men, he invariably found himself in some distant corner with the married gentlemen, indulging in the far more comfortable topics of business, politics, and the weather.

Fortunately for Sir Lewis, not all of the eligible ladies were quite so reticent and modest as himself. Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam was the daughter of the Earl Hallandale, whose patent was owing to the time of Elizabeth, and whose fortunes had been in decline ever since, such that Lady Catherine’s father had little but the title of “Lady” to pass on as dowries to his daughters. To the young son he bequeathed the additional burthen of an estate heavily mortgaged, and the necessity of providing for the dowager Countess and his two sisters in a respectable stile. Her younger sister, Anne, had recently secured an extraordinarily good match with a wealthy heir from Derbyshire. Lady Catherine, not being of a disposition to relish the obligation attendant upon her sister’s assistance, felt all the more impatient for her own good fortune. She had already seen several seasons in London occupied in the ardent pursuit of a suitable match. In possession of a good title but poor fortune, her task was made yet more unenviable by a surfeit of handsome, well-dowered daughters of tradesmen, and a corresponding dearth of titled, single men not in need of a large portion.