"Forgive me!--forgive my obstinate presumption, papa! I feel how truly you spoke! how blindly I followed my own judgment! This is a bitter stroke to me! All are here who did not advocate my ambitious choice!--but where are they who told me I should be greatly envied? Where is my mother, who prophecied worldly happiness, and told me I was right to persevere? Who assured me of bright realities, and years of happy freedom?" Julia rose from her kneeling attitude, and the expression of her eyes was fearfully wild, as she held out her hands to her father. "Why did she tell me my father loved lowly things, and could not comprehend a woman's heart? Why did she tell me Ennismore was easily influenced, and that a wife's word would supersede a mother's management? Has it been so? Have I not suffered scorn, and ridicule, and banishment, in silence? Have I not endured a thousand regrets--a thousand struggles--a thousand insults?" Julia paused as her eye again wandered over the mirror, and she saw the reflection of her own wasted figure and pale countenance. For one moment her whole attention was engrossed by the change which had taken place in her person. She gazed at her thin form, and raised her hands to examine the wasted fingers which had lost their once plump roundness and extreme beauty. She then fled from the apartment. CHAPTER XXXI. Sorrows, renewed by the associations which pressed upon her mind, impelled Lady Ennismore to seek her mother's apartments. Mrs. Bevan was attending her mistress, and Julia's noiseless step glided across the carpeted floor of the dressing-room, where Lady Wetheral lay extended on the sofa, complaining to her attendant of her own wretched feelings. "Bevan, I am very ill to-day: I cannot see Mrs. Tom Pynsent, or admit any one. My nerves become worse and worse, and I am in a dreadful state of tremour at this moment. I cannot hold my salts bottle, it falls out of my poor nervous fingers--I am very ill to-day." Mrs. Bevan spoke pleasing words of comfort, but her ladyship rejected them. "Don't talk nonsense, Bevan. I hate to hear people say things which are not likely to occur. How can I expect to be well, when Miss Wetheral obstinately defies my wishes, and all my children are determined to fly in my face? I had a dream, too, last night, which increases my disorder; I dreamt I saw Lady Ennismore brilliantly dressed, walking in a procession; and she walked so stately in jewels, and her rank placed her so high among the great ones, that I was proud of my daughter, and I smiled to see her in grandeur. Poor Julia, where is she _now_!" "She is here," exclaimed Lady Ennismore, standing before her mother, with her thin hands crossed upon her bosom; "here is the envied Countess of Ennismore!" Lady Wetheral gazed upon the vision in dumb amazement.