LORD ALMERIC'S SUIT
When Julia awoke in the morning, without start or shock, to the dreary
consciousness of all she had lost, she was still under the influence of
the despair which had settled on her spirits overnight, and had run like
a dark stain through her troubled dreams. Fatigue of body and lassitude
of mind, the natural consequences of the passion and excitement of her
adventure, combined to deaden her faculties. She rose aching in all her
limbs--yet most at heart--and wearily dressed herself; but neither saw
nor heeded the objects round her. The room to which poor puzzled Mrs.
Olney had hastily consigned her looked over a sunny stretch of park,
sprinkled with gnarled thorn-trees that poorly filled the places of the
oaks and chestnuts which the gaming-table had consumed.
