“This beef is not done, Saunders,” said the baronet to his butler, “or my appetite is not as good as usual to-day.  Colonel Egerton, will you allow me the pleasure of a glass of sherry?”

The wine was drunk, and the game succeeded the beef; but still Sir Edward could not eat.

“How glad Clara will be to see us all the day after to-morrow,” said Mrs. Wilson; “your new housekeepers delight in their first efforts in entertaining their friends.”

Lady Moseley smiled through her tears, and turning to her husband said, “We will go early, my dear, that we may see the improvements Francis has been making before we dine.”  The baronet nodded assent, but his heart was too full to speak; and apologizing to the colonel for his absence, on the plea of some business with his people, he left the room.

All this time, the attentions of Colonel Egerton to both mother and daughter were of the most delicate kind.  He spoke of Clara as if his office of groomsman entitled him to an interest in her welfare; with John he was kind and sociable; and even Mrs. Wilson acknowledged, after he had taken his leave, that he possessed a wonderful faculty of making himself agreeable, and she began to think that, under all circumstances, he might possibly prove as advantageous a connexion as Jane could expect to form.  Had any one, however, proposed him as a husband for Emily, affection would have quickened her judgment in a way that would have urged her to a very different decision.

Soon after the baronet left the room, a travelling carriage, with suitable attendants, drove to the door; the sound of the wheels drew most of the company to a window.  “A baron’s coronet!” cried Jane, catching a glimpse of the ornaments of the harness.

“The Chattertons,” echoed her brother, running out of the room to meet them.

The mother of Sir Edward was a daughter of this family, and the sister of the grandfather of the present lord.  The connexion had always been kept up with a show of cordiality between Sir Edward and his cousin, although their manner of living and habits were very different.  The baron was a courtier and a placeman.  His estates, which he could not alienate, produced about ten thousand a year, but the income he could and did spend; and the high perquisites of his situation under government, amounting to as much more were melted away year after year, without making the pro vision for his daughters that his duty and the observance of his promise to his wife’s father required at his hands.  He had been dead about two years, and his son found himself saddled with the support of an unjointured mother and unportioned sisters.  Money was not the idol the young lord worshipped, nor even pleasure.  He was affectionate to his surviving parent, and his first act was to settle, during his own life, two thousand a year on her, while he commenced setting aside as much more for each of his sisters annually.  This abridged him greatly in his own expenditures; yet, as they made but one family, and the dowager was really a managing woman in more senses than one, they made a very tolerable figure.  The son was anxious to follow the example of Sir Edward Moseley, and give up his town house, for at least a time; but his mother had exclaimed, with something like horror, at the proposal: