CHAPTER IX
I dare say my head had been on the pillow fully an hour before sleep closed my eyes. During this time I had abundant occasion to understand the activity of what are called the “busy thoughts.” Mine were feverish, glowing, and restless. They wandered over a wild field; one that included Anna, with her beauty, her mild truth, her womanly softness, and her womanly cruelty; Captain Poke and his peculiar opinions; the amiable family of quadrupeds and their wounded sensibilities; the excellences of the social-stake system; and, in short, most of that which I had seen and heard during the last four-and-twenty hours. When sleep did tardily arrive, it overtook me at the very moment that I had inwardly vowed to forget my heartless mistress, and to devote the remainder of my life to the p
