“Rise, Sarah, rise!” said Lady Glistonbury; “that is not a fit attitude!--And you are wrong, very wrong, to fail in respect to Miss Strictland, my second self, Sarah. Lady Julia Lidhurst, it is you who are the cause of this--the only failure of duty your sister ever was guilty of towards me in the whole course of her life--I beg of you to withdraw, and leave me my daughter Sarah.” “At least, I have found a sister, and when I most wanted it,” said Lady Julia. “I always suspected you loved me, but I never knew how much till this moment,” added she, turning to embrace her sister; but Lady Sarah had now resumed her stony appearance, and, standing motionless, received her sister’s embrace without sign of life or feeling. “Lady Julia Lidhurst,” said Miss Strictland, “you humble yourself in vain: I think your mother, my Lady Glistonbury, requested of you to leave your sister, Lady Sarah, to us, and to her duty.” “Duty!” repeated Lady Julia, her eyes flashing indignation: “Is this what you call _duty_?--Never will I humble myself before you again--I _will_ leave you--I do leave you--now and for ever--DUTY!” She withdrew:--and thus was lost one of the fairest occasions of confirming a young and candid mind in prudent and excellent dispositions. After humbling herself in vain before a mother, this poor young lady was now to withstand a father’s reproaches; and, after the inexorable Miss Strictland, she was to encounter the exasperated Miss Bateman. Whether the Gorgon terrors of one governess, or the fury passions of the other, were most formidable, it was difficult to decide. Miss Bateman had written an epilogue for Lady Julia to recite in the character of Calista; and, with the combined irritability of authoress and governess, she was enraged at the idea of her pupil’s declining to repeat these favourite lines. Lord Glistonbury cared not for the lines; but, considering his own authority to be impeached by his daughter’s resistance, he treated _his Julia_ as a traitor to his cause, and a rebel to his party. But Lady Julia was resolute in declining to play Calista; and Vivian admired the spirit and steadiness of her resistance to the solicitations and the flattery with which she was assailed by the numerous hangers-on of the family, and by the amateurs assembled at Glistonbury. Russell, who knew the warmth of her temper, however, dreaded that she should pass the bounds of propriety in the contest with her father and her governess; and he almost repented having given any advice upon the subject. The contest happily terminated in Lord Glistonbury’s having a violent fit of the gout, which, as the newspapers informed the public, “ended for the season the Christmas hospitalities and theatrical festivities at Glistonbury Castle!”