"Certainly, my love, do so; the half-hour bell will ring in a few minutes." Isabel seated herself, when they had gained her dressing-room, and drew a chair for her sister. "Now, Chrystal, just take off your hat and shake your curls." Christobelle did so. "Very well; now you are ready for dinner, so let us chat out the time till the bell rings, and tell me all about Wetheral. Poor Wetheral!--I often wish I was there again. Oh, Chrystal, perhaps now you are arrived, I shall not be so much with Miss Tabitha, work, work, work, all day long!--but what brought you here, without any notice? I hope every body is well?" Christobelle gave her sister all the Wetheral news, and detailed the affairs of Clara as clearly as her young judgment would allow. Isabel was charmed. "Well, papa was so good to prevent Clara marrying that old Sir Foster! I assure you, Chrystal, it would have been a foolish affair. How would poor Clara have endured reading four or five hours every day, per force, with her warm temper?" "Sir Foster never reads, Isabel." "Ah, but he would have compelled her to read; for old men are all alike, Chrystal. You may depend upon it, Clara would have been miserable. Is Sir Foster very unhappy about it?" Christobelle told her in confidence what she had seen as she passed through the chapel, and how cheerful Clara appeared afterwards at dinner. Isabel looked serious. "What could that mean? I was very unhappy, I know, till papa said I should marry Mr. Boscawen. I was very silly, then; but Clara was not Lady Kerrison, therefore she did not know how very soon those things are got over, and I am surprised she was cheerful just at that time. I wonder any body marries so young, when they can do as they please at home. Don't marry, Chrystal, till you are thirty." The great gong sounded at this moment, and Isabel rose to make a change in her dress: but she continued talking. "I don't mind that horrible gong, to-day, because you and papa are here; but it is always a signal to me of misery. After the gong sounds, I am sure to pass the remainder of the day with Miss Tabitha, and I am tired to death with teaching. In the morning I am learning geography and history, and the evening brings tent-stitch and lectures. I hope I shan't be obliged to learn tent-stitch while you are here." Isabel's maid appeared, to assist her mistress. "Oh, is that you, Mrs. Anson? Do you know if Mr. Boscawen has ordered any change in the dinner? I am sure I forgot all about it. Dear me, Anson, how hot your hands are! Well, if ever I felt such hands! Mr. Boscawen's hands are cold as ice. Just scratch out my hair, Anson. I don't care how it looks; no more will Clara, if she marries Sir.... There is Mr. Boscawen's tap against the wall; don't you hear it? Now that tap always means that he is ready to go down, and I must hold my tongue and make haste. I am always chatting to Mrs. Anson, when you are not here, Chrystal. Come, I am ready now."