Astonished as Mr. and Mrs. Hildyard may have been, that was nothing compared with the indignant amazement of the earl when the affair broke upon him. For Mr. Hildyard, not contented with writing fully to Lord Winchester, had dropped an explanatory note to the earl, intimating his hope that the latter would urge upon his son the futility of the expectation that Miss Frances Hildyard could ever become Viscountess Winchester. That the viscount admired Frances was beyond a doubt; nay, that he loved her; but that he had entertained any serious thoughts of making her his wife, was a mistake. He was not so ready to give up the attractions of bachelorship. He had passed his leisure hours most agreeably by the side of Frances, without any ultimate end in view, and without giving a thought to one. What commotion there was in the house when the supercilious letter of the haughty old peer arrived at Mr. Hildyard's. A lawyer's daughter a fit mate for the heir to one of the most ancient earldoms! Had Mr. Hildyard and his wife ever entertained so aspiring a thought, they were now plainly undeceived. Lord Winchester was forbidden the house; all intercourse with him, even but a passing nod, should they meet in public, was denied to Frances; and she who had never been chidden or crossed, who did not know what control was, had her mother and sisters constantly peeping and peering over her, night and day. But their vigilance was sometimes eluded. There were servants in the house, who, devoted to Frances's interests or to the viscount's bribery, frequently passed letters from one to the other, and even contrived to bring about interviews between them. One unlucky evening, however, that Frances was missing from the sitting-room, her eldest sister bethought herself to go in search of her--a suspicion, it may have been, rife in her heart. Reception-rooms and other chambers were searched in vain, and the lady stealthily made her way to the apartments of the servants, scaring one that she met on the road by her unusual appearance there. The housekeeper's parlor was at the end of a passage, and Miss Hildyard advanced to it, and turned the handle of the door, and--she did not faint, but sank down upon a chair with a succession of groans so loud, that they might have been heard at any given place within three miles--Lord Winchester stood there, clasping her sister in his arms, and, to use poor Miss Louisa's expression to her mother afterward, actually KISSING her!--kissing her cheek as fast as he could kiss.