Captain Ponsonby sprang to his feet, and the little group gradually dispersed. Miss Ponsonby declared her brother should have been educated for the bar in lieu of the army, he held forth so fluently upon unintelligible subjects; and she challenged Mortimer Grey to assist her in discovering the lost victims to Arthur's oratory. They set forth in the direction of the spot where Fanny Ponsonby still stood absorbed, and alone. Captain Ponsonby walked chatting by Christobelle, who leaned upon her father's arm, and all bent their steps towards the little ruined chapel. "Who would have supposed so many graves, heraldic devices, and rude sculpture, to lie forgotten and deserted here?" said Captain Ponsonby, pointing to the various relics of other times which lay half buried in the earth around. "How many stirring events have filled this soil with mouldering bones, and caused the tears to flow from maidens' eyes!" "How many fearful feuds have made these mountains echo with shouts and cries of blood!" remarked Sir John Wetheral. "Ay, but picture to your mind's eye the funereal procession of the clans, slowly winding down those bold cliffs in silent sorrow, while the pibroch screamed its wild notes to wail the dead." Captain Ponsonby's countenance assumed a graver expression as he spoke, and Christobelle thought it infinitely became the cast of his features. It passed away quickly, as they advanced towards Sir John Spottiswoode, and he resumed his playful mood. "Sir John Spottiswoode, Miss Wetheral likens you to a lover bewailing his mistress." "Pray, Captain Ponsonby, do not say so," exclaimed Christobelle, in alarm. "You looked as if you thought so, Miss Wetheral. Why is your eye so expressive?" Christobelle felt distressed beyond measure at Captain Ponsonby's thoughtless speech, which elicited a cold smile from Sir John Spottiswoode. How could he smile so coldly upon her? Christobelle had no spirits to reply to the cheerful remarks of Captain Ponsonby, who continued chatting with enviable ease of heart, upon every subject which offered itself to his notice. She was listening to a conversation infinitely more attractive between her father and Sir John Spottiswoode; but Captain Ponsonby's vivacity perpetually interrupted her attention, and called forth an unwilling and absent reply. There is no annoyance so galling as the society of the happy, when a heart is struggling with grief, which seeks silence and solitude. "Miss Wetheral, I bespeak your attention to those masses of clouds rising in the west; are they not beautiful? Did you ever fancy forms in the clouds? I do, often. See, Miss Wetheral, I can outline a lion rampant perfectly in that fleecy cloud--can you see it?" Christobelle was disturbed: Sir John Spottiswoode had spoken about Alverton, and she wished to catch his words as they became indistinct. She answered Captain Ponsonby hastily, "No, indeed."