To poor Isabella Slingsby her father's lively unconsciousness was terrible; and it was with trembling hands that she made the tea and poured out the coffee, giving a sharp look round every time the door opened, as if in expectation of some grim bailiff's face appearing. Such, indeed, would have been the case, had it not been, that good Mr. Bacon had contrived to delay what he could not prevent; and at length, much to the joy and satisfaction of Isabella, the grating sound of carriage-wheels was heard from the park. That sound was still distant and indistinct, however, when the butler came in with a very peculiar and significant expression of countenance, saying, "Please, Sir John, there's a man wants to speak with you." "Well, he must wait," said Sir John Slingsby. "Tell him I am at breakfast--has not the postbag come yet?" "Please, Sir John, the man says he must speak with you directly." "Tell him to go to the devil," said Sir John Slingsby, "and speak with him;" but the words were scarcely out of his mouth, when the door opened behind the butler, and not one man, but two appeared. Isabella's face had been very pale from the first announcement made by the servant; but Sir John had remained perfectly unconscious till he saw those two strange faces. They were any thing but pleasant faces in the abstract, for though well washed and shaved there was a ruffianly dirt of expression, which no soap could get rid of. There are certain professions which stamp themselves upon the outer man in indelible lines. The bailiff--the man who makes his bread or his fortune by inflicting the most poignant misery the law knows upon his fellow-creature--the step in society still lower than the hangman--is never to be mistaken; and Sir John Slingsby recognised at once tie errand of his intrusive visitors in their aspect. His face became very pale, the red veins turned blue; and he sat at the table without uttering a word. He well knew that these men's appearance, though bad enough in itself, was but the commencement of evils: that the long-delayed hour was come: that the thin worn line which upheld his whole fortunes had snapped, and that he was now to fall into the gulf of ruin which had so long yawned beneath him. Arrested and carried from his house, every creditor would pour in with his claims, every debt be swelled by law expenses, till nought would be left for him and for his child, but a prison and a life of labour. His careless heart sank with the weight suddenly cast upon it; and his brain was overpowered with the multitude of thoughts it had resisted too long.