As soon as reason had abdicated her seat, fancy ascended the throne. Confusion succeeded, and the busy turmoil of weary imaginings, and painful contrarieties, robbed sleep of her healing balm. Wanderings alone on starless nights—Dreary wildernesses in the blaze of noon, without one living object to be seen—Crowded ball-rooms—Edmund leading Lady Susan past to join the dance, with a countenance so changed, so cold; and all interspersed with short glimpses of Lodore and happy childhood: till, at length, by the time she ought to have been awaking in the morning, her dream (_not_ from “foregone conclusions,” but from outward causes,) took the following form. She thought she saw Edmund and Lady Susan coming towards her in one of the shrubbery walks at Arandale. She tried to avoid them, but could scarcely move an inch at a time. They overtook her. Edmund, she thought, to her utter astonishment, put one arm round her, and drew her towards him; while the other, she now perceived, was around Lady Susan. Amazed at this audacious freedom, and especially indignant at such partnership in love, she struggled to free herself, and, with almost a bound, awoke. Arms really were around her, laughing eyes were close to her’s, and a soft voice named her. But it was that of Frances, who had, all this time, been trying every means, but hitherto in vain, to awake her sister; so heavy was the late sleep induced by the anxious thoughts of the night, and the busy dreams of the morning. Indeed it was not quite two hours since Julia had first closed her eyes. “Bless me,” cried Alice, as she entered the room, “can that be the bagpipes for breakfast, and it has only just gone ten! Well, I thought my Lady Arandale would have taken a sleep this morning, after being up a matter of half the night.” “Were we so much later than usual then?” asked Frances. “Much as common, my Lady,” replied Alice; “but when the men went in to take the supper things away, my Lady and my Lord, both, were so busy with Mr. Edmund, Captain Montgomery, I should say, that they were sent away again, and not rung for, for two hours. I wish all may be true that was said in the hall,” she recommenced, after having assisted her young ladies to dress for some time in silence; “for Mr. Edmund is one that every body loves; and I, for one, should rejoice in his good luck—and think it nothing so strange, neither; though the old butler put himself in such a passion, and said that Lady Susan was a wife for the first duke in the land—and—” “I have told you before, Alice,” said Julia, making an effort to conceal her real feelings under the mask of pettishness, “that you are not to repeat the conversations of the hall-table in our room.”