Sink or Swim? , Volume I

The Lady Millicent Vavasour, whose proceedings were thus so freely commented upon by her inferiors, was the only child of the rich and potent Earl of Gillingham. That nobleman, who survived the Countess, his wife, but little more than a year, bequeathed at his decease, with restrictions and a good deal _à contre cœur_, all that he possessed, in land, mines, personalty, and otherwise, to his only child, the Lady Millicent aforesaid and in the last chapter duly commented upon.

The income produced by the above-mentioned properties -- of all of which the heiress came into undisputed possession at the age of twenty-three -- amounted at a moderate computation to thirty thousand pounds per annum. The Lady Millicent Vavasour therefore took her stand on the platform of public estimation with the _prestige_ of being one of the richest heiresses in England.