Fanny was growing tall, thin, sour-looking, and miserable; for having a sort of stubborn feeling within her which resisted the assurances she almost hourly received of having been elected to eternal grace, she was secretly torturing her distempered conscience with the belief that she was deluding every one but her Creator,--that he alone read her heart and knew her to be reprobate, hardened, and unregenerate, and that she must finally and inevitably come to be the prey of the worm that dieth not and the fire that is never quenched. The sufferings of this innocent young creature under this terrible persuasion were dreadful, and the more so because she communicated them to none. Had she displayed the secret terrors of her soul to Mr. Cartwright or her mother, she knew she should be told with praises and caresses that she was only the more blessed and sure of immortal glory for feeling them. Had she opened her heart to her sister, her brother, or Rosalind, her sufferings would probably have soon ceased; but from this she shrank as from degradation unbearable. Poor Rosalind, meanwhile, was as profoundly unhappy as it was well possible for a girl to be who was young, beautiful, rich, talented, well-born, sweet-tempered, high-principled, not crossed in love, and moreover in perfect health. Young Mowbray had just taken a distinguished degree at Oxford, and having given a farewell banquet to his college friends, returned home with the hope of speedily obtaining the commission in a regiment of horse for which his name had been long ago put down by his father. It was at this time that several circumstances occurred at Wrexhill sufficiently important to the principal personages of my narrative to be recorded at some length. CHAPTER X. FANNY'S RELIGION.--A VISIT TO OAKLEY. It was towards the end of November that young Mowbray returned from Oxford to his mother's house in Hampshire. As usual, the first three or four hours' chat with Helen and Rosalind put him _au fait_ of all that had taken place during his absence. The retrospect was not a cheering one; yet most of the circumstances which tended to annoy him were of that minor kind which none but a very gossiping correspondent would detail--and Helen was not such. Besides, since the mysterious letter which had recalled Charles to keep watch over Fanny, (the full and true purpose of which letter he had never yet discovered,) Miss Torrington had not written to him; and as she was now the chief historian, her round and unvarnished tale made him acquainted with many particulars to which Helen had scarcely alluded in her correspondence with him. Helen Mowbray's was not a spirit to exhaust itself and its sorrows by breathing unavailing complaints; and though her brother had pretty clearly understood from her letters that she was not happy or comfortable at home, it was from Rosalind he first learned how many circumstances were daily occurring to make her otherwise.