Mrs. Spottiswoode engaged the following morning to drive Christobelle to Wetheral, and the ladies agreed to remain quietly in the house with their work, till the hour arrived for their airing. It was then that Mrs. Spottiswoode opened her heart, and told Christobelle all her fears respecting Julia's happiness. She heard only reports like the rest of the world; but they were reports which filled her with uneasiness and apprehension. She felt assured her friend had been sacrificed, and she was equally certain the Dowager-countess had been the mental vampire which clung to Julia, and destroyed her peace, by interfering with and withholding her correspondence. Sir John Wetheral had suspected as much at Bedinfield himself--she knew it was not Julia's nature to forget her friends--she would never credit the assertion, let who would insinuate it. Reports breathed suspicion on her fame, with regard to Colonel Neville; but she would stake her existence that, however Julia's taste must have turned disgusted from her wretched lord, she was pure as unsunned snow. Any one who dared to question her friend's purity of mind before her, would rouse the blood of all the Wycherlys in her veins. Charles did not like the subject ever brought forward in her presence, because she felt keenly every remark which touched upon her friend's miserable fate; but now the gentlemen were out of the way, she could unfold her fears to Christobelle. "If ever there was a wretch in the form of mortal, Chrystal," she continued, "it is that wicked dowager; and we shall live to see it confirmed in the case of my poor Julia, the friend of my youth, whom I loved so dearly. I told Charles she was going to woe, when she was led like a lamb to the slaughter! Oh, Julia should _not_ have married Lord Ennismore, Chrystal!" Mrs. Spottiswoode became affected as she dwelt upon the scenes of the past; and she detailed to Christobelle many incidents which had escaped her young observation. It was delightful to Christobelle to hear her talk of Julia, and her eyes often bore testimony to the sympathy she felt in the narration of their long friendship, and the events of their earliest days. The hall-door bell pealed its sounds as they wept and talked. Mrs. Spottiswoode was surprised and annoyed; she breathed hastily upon her hands, and applied them to her eyes. "How very disagreeably early some people are calling; and our eyes, Chrystal, are quite unfit to be seen! I must draw down the blinds. I really cannot receive any one with such a pair of eyes and such a heavy heart, comfortably." The door was thrown open, but no name was announced. A female figure, however, appeared, and approached slowly and unsteadily towards Mrs. Spottiswoode. She spoke in tones which startled her ear and heart. "I am come to try my friend's truth; for she told me that in evil report, or in good report, in weal or woe, _here_ I should find rest!" Mrs. Spottiswoode stood motionless.