Page:Precaution; a novel by Cooper, James Fenimore.djvu/63

Rh 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 connection as Jane could expect to form. Had any one, however, proposed him as a husband for Emily, affection would have quickened her judgment in away 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 connection 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 provision 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