Sir John Wetheral twice visited Shropshire during his seclusion at Fairlee, but his daughter could not accompany him. Lady Wetheral's health detained her; and, during his absence, the magnificence of the country, its quiet grandeur, and its beautiful variety, could not recompense her for the misery she endured under continual and unabated reproaches, or the language of useless complaint, unceasingly uttered in doleful tones. Her ladyship considered her daughter's singlehood at seventeen years of age a severe blow upon her matronly cares. Up to the moment of her seventeenth birthday, Christobelle had never received an offer of marriage, or heard a comment upon her beauty, save in the somewhat coarse approbation which was bestowed by Mrs. Pynsent upon her growth at Hatton. Christobelle had never listened to adulation, nor had she ever, in her walks, met a look or observation which could be construed into admiration, or even commendation. She bounded in health and freedom of heart over the mountains, and sailed on the lake with her attendant Janet, without a thought of care, or a wish to shine as her sisters had done, before her entrance into society. She wished her father alone to share in her rambles; if her fancy ever strayed beyond his presence, it was in a sigh to think how greatly she should enjoy the surprise and pleasure which Sir John Spottiswoode must feel, if he ever beheld the scenery of Lochleven. But it was not so with Lady Wetheral. Every year brought newly-awakened annoyance to Christobelle, in the ironical tone of her mother's birthday congratulation: and it brought equal affliction to her ladyship, that she must still endure the society of a daughter unsought, and very probably destined to remain single. Her father was in England when she received congratulations upon attaining her seventeenth year. Sir John promised to reach Fairlee, if possible, in time to spend that day with his daughter at the falls of Kinlochmore; but it was not to be so, and she entered the breakfast-room that morning depressed and without appetite. Lady Wetheral commenced her attack. "I believe, Bell, you are now seventeen. I beg to offer my congratulations upon the effect you have created at Lochleven. Clara and Isabel were married at your age, and I am expecting every day to be consulted upon some affair of your own. You appear to have made no impression upon young Ponsonby, after all your walks and sails upon the water." "Young Ponsonby, mamma!" "Some people never care to understand what they do not wish to know," replied her mother. "In the precincts of Lochleven your want of power to please may pass unobserved, but I should have been pointed at in England, as a mother hopeless of her daughter's establishment." "But young Ponsonby never walks and sails with _me_, mamma. I am only accompanied by Janet." "I am perfectly aware that Janet is your only companion," replied her mother, drily.