Even when accompanying her husband to scenes of festivity, neither his loved presence nor the pleasures around her always chased from the mind of Lady Legrange this phantom of undefined fear. But that which above all things oppressed the young wife with a sorrow for which the world has no remedy, was her consciousness of alienation from her God. What matter how fair be the surrounding landscape, if the heaven above be of dull leaden hue, if the sun be blotted from the sky? As regarded the most important of all subjects, the heart of Flora was cold and hard; and she knew it. No one can for long worship an earthly idol without feeling the withering effect. Sir Amery stood between his wife and her God. Flora was careful as ever to observe the forms of religion, when she could do so without displeasing her husband; her seat was not vacant in the pew, nor her name absent from the charity list: but her piety was like a petrified leaf--it could deceive even her own heart no longer. All that remained of her religion seemed a vague sense of fear, the fear of a slave for an offended master, who has the power, perhaps the will, to chastise. Sometimes Flora doubted whether she had ever been a Christian at all--whether from childhood she had not played a hypocrite’s part, and whether she were not playing it still. She no longer thought of heaven as a blissful home, and even when bitterness of soul made her weary of life, she felt a shrinking from the thought of death. And can we wonder that Flora was not happy--that pleasures failed to amuse her, even conjugal affection to bless? Had she rested with cheerful content, in that state of coldness, alienation, and wandering from God, it had been a sign, indeed, that religion had utterly perished in her soul--that her mother’s prayers, and teaching, and example, had all been in vain. *CHAPTER XVI.* *RISING CLOUDS.* "Flora, my love, has anything occurred to distress you?" said the baronet, as he entered the breakfast room one morning in his embroidered dressing-gown and slippers, with the newspaper in his hand. [Illustration: "Flora, my love, has anything occurred to distress you?" said the baronet.] Flora looked anxious and unhappy, her eye rested upon an open letter which she had received by the early post. "I have heard from Mr. Ward, dearest," she replied; "he gives me tidings which have made me very uneasy. Scarlet fever, of a malignant kind, has been raging lately in Wingsdale, and I grieve to say that two of my brother’s children are ill with it now, and it is feared that the baby is sickening." The baronet coughed slightly, stirred the fire, and sat down to sip his chocolate. "My poor mother!" faltered Flora; "Mr. Ward writes that she is far from strong; the nursing will be so heavy upon her." "Have not the children a mother?" said Sir Amery, abruptly.