Lady Wetheral's health did not recover the shock of Lady Kerrison's death. She sank gradually into an invalid: and, though she rarely visited the beauteous scenes around her, and never admired their grandeur, yet her thoughts rested no longer upon England. She was content to remain at Fairlee, exhausted in body, and depressed in mind. Her temper lost every trace of its former playfulness, and she dwelt constantly and bitterly upon the idea of Clara's ingratitude in not seeing her at the time of her decease. She told Christobelle the voice of Clara came to her in the dead of the night, and thundered in the wind which roared from the mountains. She saw Clara in her dreams ever pointing towards her, and exclaiming, "Oh! hard-hearted mother!" She declared to Christobelle that if her death should prove the consequence of such distressing visitations, she died by the hand of Lady Kerrison, and her ungrateful conduct would have been the means of destroying the author of her existence, and the contriver of her high and enviable establishment. She had indeed heard of ungrateful children; but little could she imagine she was herself to fall a victim to the daughters whom she had reared so carefully. Clara had died, and she expected Julia would be equally undutiful. Not once had she been invited to Bedinfield, nor was she even apprized of their flight abroad! Such were Lady Wetheral's feelings; and her irritable and disappointed mind vented its bitterness upon the innocent Christobelle. The leading thought of her heart and the aim of her actions had ever been the establishment of her children, and upon her youngest daughter, now in the midst of suffering and solitude, did her anxiety rest. Christobelle was to beware of the sun and of the dew. It was ruinous to the complexion to sit staring for hours in a hot sun upon nonsensical views, and still worse, to roam about with a plaid round her shoulders, and a hat swinging to her arm, like a low-lived Scotch girl. Lochleven produced much gaiety in the autumn, as many families thronged to visit lake scenery; she would therefore feel obliged by Miss Chrystal paying a little more attention to her person, that she might not be recognized as Lady Wetheral's very vulgar daughter, or give occasion of remark to General Ponsonby's family. General Ponsonby, as a man of high connections, might probably have people staying at Clanmoray of some consideration; and she insisted upon her careful attention to dress and manners. She might meet gentlemen unexpectedly, and a young lady should be upon her guard. No man could be struck with a girl whose tanned complexion gave her the appearance of having tended sheep and goats upon the hill-tops.