ent 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:

"Chatterton, would you give it up at the moment it can be of the most use
to us?" and she threw a glance at her daughters that would have discovered
her motive to Mrs Wilson, which was lost on her son; he, poor soul,
thinking she found it convenient to support the interest he had been
making for the place held by his father one of more emolument than
service, or even honor. The contending parties were so equally matched,
that this situation was kept, as it were, in abeyance, waiting the arrival
of some acquisition of interest to one or other of the claimants. The
interest of the peer, however, had begun to lose ground at