Their uncle, Abraham Dyson, was the first arrival, and behind him followed his son and daughter, Jacob and Rachel.  Rachel was a buxom young woman of five-and-twenty, shortly to be advanced to the dignity of a wedded wife.  She would have been married before but for the feeble health of her mother; but the ceremony was not to be postponed much longer on that account, for fear the bridegroom, a silk mercer in thriving way of business, should grow weary of delay, and seek another partner for his hand and home.  But Abraham Dyson saw another way of getting his sick wife properly looked to, and had whispered his notion in the ear of his brother-in-law.  The Dysons and the Holts had had intimate business dealing with each other for generations, and there had been many matrimonial connections between them in times past.  Martin himself had married Abraham’s sister, and he listened with equanimity and pleasure to the proposal to ally one of his daughters with the solid and stolid Jacob.

Jacob was not much to look at, but he would be a man of considerable substance in time, and he had a shrewd head enough for business.  As it had not pleased Providence to bless Martin Holt with sons, the best he could do was to find suitable husbands for his daughters, and seek amongst his sons-in-law for one into whose hands his business might worthily be intrusted.  Daughters were still, and for many generations later, looked upon very much in the light of chattels to be disposed of at will by their parents and guardians, and it had not entered honest Martin’s head that his wilful little Cherry would dare to set up her will in opposition to his.

Jacob, who had been taken into the confidence of his elders, had expressed his preference for the youngest of his three cousins; and though not a word had been spoken to the girl upon the subject as yet, Martin looked upon the matter as settled.

Scarcely had the bustle of the first arrivals died down before the remaining two guests arrived—­a tall, bent man with the face of a student and book lover, followed by his son, also a man of rather distinguished appearance for his station in life.  The two Coles, father and son, were amongst those many Roman Catholic sufferers who had been ruined on account of their religion during the last reign; and now they gained a somewhat scanty livelihood by keeping a second-hand book shop on the bridge, selling paper and parchment and such like goods, and acting as scriveners to any who should desire to avail themselves of their skill in penmanship.

They were both reputed to be men of considerable learning, and as they had fallen from a different position, they were looked up to with a certain amount of respect.  Some were disposed to sneer at and flout them, but they were on the whole well liked amongst their neighbours.  They were very quiet people, and never spoke one word of the matters which came to their knowledge through the letters they were from time to time called upon to write.  Almost every surrounding family had in some sort or another intrusted them with some family secret or testamentary deposition, and would on this account alone have been averse to quarrelling with them, for fear they might let out the secret.