The expression was observed, and a deep sigh broke from the two elder sisters; the one looking up from her book, which was a Roman-Catholic edition of the "Lives of the Saints," to give vent to it. At the same moment a servant entered, and presented a salver to his mistress. She took a note from it, and broke the seal. The man quitted the room, and Frances, like a spoiled child, leaned her head upon her mother's lap to look at the handwriting. "It is from your papa, my dearest, written from the office; but a couple of lines. He says he shall bring home a client to dinner--a nobleman, who will probably take a bed at our house. It may be as well, perhaps, that I order some trifling additions to the table." "The dinner is very well, madam," meekly observed one of her elder daughters. "It is handsome and good: will not the enlarging of it savor much of worldly vanity?" "Additions! to be sure, mamma!" cried Frances. "What are you dreaming of, Mary? it is a nobleman who is coming, did you not hear?" And bending forward, she pulled hastily the bell, that Mrs. Hildyard might issue her orders. But while they are up-stairs dressing, it may be as well to give a short intimation of who the parties are. Mr. Hildyard was an eminent lawyer, ranking high in his profession, of unblemished character, and of great wealth. He was of the Roman Catholic persuasion. His family consisted but of the three daughters we have already seen. The two elder ones, Louisa and Mary, had been placed in early childhood at a convent in one of the midland counties. Merry-hearted girls they were when they entered it; but at their departure, after a sojourn there of several years, their joyous spirits had been subdued to gloom. The world and all its concerns was to them a sin; and they decidedly deemed that no person was worthy to live in it, save those who were continually out of it "in the spirit," and whose time was passed in the offices of religion, and in ecclesiastical acerbities. They returned home young women, while their little sister, the willful child, Frances, was but eight years of age. Most passionately fond of this child, coming to them so many years after the birth of the others, were Mr. and Mrs. Hildyard; and, like too many fond parents, they merged her future well-being in present indulgence. Oh! better had it been for Frances Hildyard to have turned into stone her heart's best feelings, and to have lived a life of contented gloom as her sisters did, than to have grown up the vain, self-willed girl which she had done, reveling in the world and its vanities as if it were to be her resting-place forever.