CHAPTER XVII.
Say from whence You owe this strange intelligence?
or why Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such prophetic greeting?
Speak, I charge you.
Macbeth.
Upon the evening of the day when Bertram's examination had taken place, Colonel Mannering arrived at Woodbourne from Edinburgh.

He found his family in their usual state, which probably, so far as Julia was concerned, would not have been the case had she learned the news of Bertram's arrest.

But as, during the Colonel's absence, the two young ladies lived much retired, this circumstance fortunately had not reached Woodbourne.

A letter had already made Miss Bertram acquainted with the downfall of the expectations which had been formed upon the bequest of her kinswoman.

Whatever hopes that news might have dispelled, the disappointment did not prevent her from joining her friend in affording a cheerful reception to the Colonel, to whom she thus endeavoured to express the deep sense she entertained of his paternal kindness.