"I will point it out more distinctly. Fix your eye upon the third dark cloud, and by the side of that cloud stands the lion rampant. Now do you see what I mean?" "Yes," replied Christobelle, almost peevishly, "I think I see what you mean." She trusted the subject was now ended. "Well, can you distinguish a chariot and pair, Miss Wetheral? I see them distinctly, and in excellent proportions." "It pains my sight, Captain Ponsonby, to fix my eyes upon the heavens." "I will shade the light with my hat," said Captain Ponsonby; "there, now your eyes are safe: the sun is behind my hat." Christobelle was obliged to give her attention to the indefatigable Captain Ponsonby, and she lost all hope of Sir John Spottiswoode's remarks. Her spirits were powerfully depressed; happily, as the morning had opened upon her cheerful expectations, every pleasant prospect was clouded now. Sir John Spottiswoode had been gay and playful in conversation, till they alighted at Clanmoray, and from that moment her evil genius had pursued her. Why was the companion of her walks so changed, and why was he so cold and silent to his friend? It appeared to Christobelle that Sir John Spottiswoode suffered under an equally potent spell. The tone of his voice as he spoke to her father was low and melancholy, and there was an expression in his withdrawn eyes, which particularly affected her. It was not of anger, he was too kind to feel angry; it was not of irritability, such as she had seen flashing and dull by turns, in her mother's countenance. There was an expression, touching and attractive in his disquietude, which went at once to her heart, and occupied its thoughts. She could ill endure the rapid remarks and conversation of Captain Ponsonby: how she wished to be again at Fairlee, free from observation, and at liberty to think upon all that had occurred, in the solitude of her own apartment! Oh, that she had never seen Fanny Ponsonby! It was Fanny Ponsonby who pointed the arrow of jealousy at her heart, and tore the veil from her eyes. It was Fanny Ponsonby who taught her that friendship was but a cloak for deeper feelings, and that the pain she inflicted betrayed a heart prostrate before that Deity whose arrows, under a borrowed name, enter unsuspiciously into the soul of his victim. "But, Miss Wetheral, you are meditating too gravely," resumed Captain Ponsonby, after a pause of some minutes, "the tombs of a thousand souls cause your eye to grow heavy. Let us sing away care upon these swelling earths. Where are the mirthful ones, and where are the singing-men, and the singing-women? The Greys are all musical."