The new Lord Hallendale had been in regular contact with a seller of a great variety of stone specimens and mineral books in London over the long course of years spent acquiring his collection. The rock-seller had been content that, upon his own decease, his daughter should inherit his business, she having for many years sufficed for his assistant, agent, book-keeper, and clerk. This daughter had not only acquired an uncommonly thorough knowledge of the minerals her father collected for sale, but managed the concern successfully, in that those gentlemen who had previously favoured his establishment with their custom had no occasion to complain of either the quantity or quality of objects which continued to be offered for their consideration. She, in that capacity, had occasion to correspond regularly with the Earl, and to meet with and shew him any new acquisitions whenever the Earl would journey to London for that purpose, which he now did with increasing frequency. At some time, the purpose of his visits became as much to see the lively, dark-eyed proprietress with the merry wit and agreeable conversation, as the contents of her ware-house.

If the Viscount had been amenable to follow the inclinations of his parents in the choice of his first wife, the Earl’s feelings were so materially different, that he sought no-one’s opinion other than his own in his choice of a second. His Lordship had no interest in running the affairs of his estate, as he had left the small portion of any such activity to his father; the estates continued unchecked in their certain decline, left solely to the care of a London attorney and a negligent steward. The Earl’s successful solicitation of the hand of the shop-keeper’s daughter gained him, in the bargain, not only a capable superintendent, but the entirety of her father’s collection, as well. In due course, the new Lady Hallendale was installed in Lord Hallendale’s study, along with her father’s best cabinets.

What the public may have felt upon the Earl’s remarriage may be left to the reader’s conjecture. Lord Hallendale had not, as might be considered customary in such a case, married a shop-keeper’s daughter principally to disoblige his own family, but simply to please himself. In forsaking the opportunity to acquire a wife of birth and fortune, which his rank would otherwise dictate, the Earl had chosen a woman of sound intelligence and education, and one who had abilities which would make her even more valuable to him in the management of his estates than she had with her dowry of rocks. Society in general does not find favour with any influence of women outside the domestic sphere; however, as in the choice of his wife, the Earl was more inclined to prefer his own judgement to that of the world at-large.