Their appearance certainly made a sensation in the drawing-room, for Lady Wetheral raised her glass with a surprised and satisfied expression of countenance, and examined Christobelle very attentively. Mrs. Pynsent caught a glance of her head, curled, frizzed, and bowed in all directions; and she exclaimed, "Hollo, there! why, Miss Bell, what's the matter now? they have made a dancing-dog of you!" "You have done a very kind action by your sister, my dear Mrs. Tom Pynsent," said Lady Wetheral, still gazing at Christobelle through her glass; "you have quite christianized her style and appearance." "Ha, ha!" laughed Mrs. Pynsent, "poor Miss Bell! Well, now they _have_ done it. Curly-headed christians for ever, Mrs. Tom! Who are you going to baptize next?" "But does not Bell become her baptism?" asked Anna Maria, smiling. "She is always a pretty girl; and, what is far better, she is a good and kind-hearted girl; but I don't like your French fashions." "Pray, Bell, let your hair be attended to in future," said Lady Wetheral, still holding her glass to her eye. "I approve of your present appearance. I cannot endure your thick, short hair hanging over your eyes." "By far the most natural, at her age," observed Mrs. Pynsent; "a young girl dressed up that figure, is very unnatural and ridiculous." Lady Wetheral did not reply. Tom Pynsent was much amused at the transformation, when he entered the room. He bantered Christobelle, with great good-humour, upon the havoc she would cause among the hearts of the schoolboys, the very next vacation, if she persisted in twisting her hair into sausages; and he pitied poor Frank Kerrison, who would certainly renounce murdering cockchafers, to write verses upon her beauty. Sir John smiled, and stroked his daughter's cheek, but he offered no comment upon her person. The circumstance was almost too trifling to amuse even the dull half hour before dinner. A whim of Mrs. Tom Pynsent had led her to dress her sister's hair; and its end was answered, by causing a few smiles and a jest. The incident passed away, and was forgotten in the summons to dinner; but that very trifling occurrence laid the foundation of much future misery:--it woke up Lady Wetheral's slumbering energies, and led her to speculate upon the establishment of a creature whom she had, till that moment, renounced as awkward and vulgar--a girl belonging exclusively to her father--whose futurity was indifferent to herself. Causes, however trifling in their origin, swell into fearful effects, under the agency of the weak or wicked.