“I hope you did not take the trouble, sir, to inquire on my account,” retorted Jane, coloring slightly with vexation at his speech.

“Indeed I did, my dear sis, and solely on your account,” replied the laughing brother, “for you well know that no gentility, no husband; and it’s dull work to you young ladies without at least a possibility of matrimony; as for Clara, she is——­”

Here he was stopped by his youngest sister Emily placing her hand on his mouth, as she whispered in his ear, “John, you forget the anxiety of a certain gentleman about a fair incognita at Bath, and a list of inquiries concerning her lineage, and a few other indispensables.”  John, in his turn, colored, and affectionately kissing the hand which kept him silent, addressed himself to Jane, and by his vivacity and good humor soon restored her to complacency.

“I rejoice,” said Lady Moseley, “that Sir William has found a tenant, however; for next to occupying it himself, it is a most desirable thing to have a good tenant in it, on account of the circle in which we live.”

“And Mr. Jarvis has the great goodness of money, by John’s account,” caustically observed Mrs. Wilson, who was a sister of Sir Edward’s.

“Let me tell you, madam,” cried the rector of the parish, looking around him pleasantly, and who was pretty constant, and always a welcome visitor in the family, “that a great deal of money is a very good thing in itself, and that a great many very good things may be done with it.”

“Such as paying tythes, ha! doctor,” cried Mr. Haughton, a gentleman of landed property in the neighborhood, of plain exterior, but great goodness of heart, and between whom and the rector subsisted the most cordial good will.

“Aye, tythes, or halves, as the baronet did here, when he forgave old Gregson one half his rent, and his children the other.”

“Well, but, my dear,” said Sir Edward to his wife, “you must not starve our friends because we are to have a neighbor.  William has stood with the dining-room door open these five minutes—­”

Lady Moseley gave her hand to the rector, and the company followed them, without any order, to the dinner table.

The party assembled around the hospitable board of the baronet was composed, besides the before-mentioned persons, of the wife of Mr. Haughton, a woman of much good sense and modesty of deportment:  their daughter, a young lady conspicuous for nothing but good nature; and the wife and son of the rector—­the latter but lately admitted to holy orders himself.

The remainder of the day passed in an uninterrupted flow of pleasant conversation, the natural consequence of a unison of opinions on all leading questions, the parties having long known and esteemed each other for those qualities which soonest reconcile us to the common frailties of our nature.  On parting at the usual hour, it was agreed to meet that day week at the rectory, and the doctor, on making his bow to Lady Moseley, observed, that he intended, in virtue of his office, to make an early call on the Jarvis family, and that, if possible, he would persuade them to be of the party.