CHAPTER XVI.--MISS LIVINGSTONE SPEAKS A BIT OF HER MIND. It was a lovely morning in early summer, when the sun, shining into Lewis’s bedroom at Broadhurst, aroused him from a heavy dreamless sleep, the result of his previous night’s dissipation at Lady Lombard’s. The sensation of waking for the first time in a strange place is usually a disagreeable one; there is an unfamiliar newness in the aspect of everything around us, an absence of old associations, which to an impressible disposition is singularly disheartening. This was peculiarly the case with Lewis; the costly furniture of the room, arranged with a stiff propriety, the spotless carpet, the chair-covers too clean and slippery to be sat upon, the bright cold mirrors, the polished grate, in which a fire would have been high treason, each and all suggestive of the chilling influence of that rigid disciplinarian Miss Livingstone, served painfully to realise his new position. Splendour without comfort was an anomaly he had never before encountered, and in his then frame of mind it aroused all the bitter feelings which even his strength of will was unable to subdue, and he mentally compared himself to a slave working in gilded chains, and longed for independence, no matter through what hardships, struggles, and dangers it must be attained. But there was a healthy energy about his mind which prevented his yielding to these morbid feelings; hastily dressing himself, he found his way into the pleasure garden, and as it was yet early, strolled onward through the park. After wandering about for nearly an hour, the calm beauty of the scenery and the exhilarating freshness of the morning air producing their natural effect upon his spirits, it occurred to him that his absence might be commented upon, and possibly give offence; accordingly, he retraced his steps towards the house. Ignorant of the _locale_, however, he was unable to discover the door by which he had gone out, and after making one or two attempts in a wrong direction, was compelled to effect his entrance through a French window opening into a conservatory. Lewis possessed a great taste for, and some knowledge of botany, and his attention was at once attracted by the rare and beautiful plants around him. So completely was he engrossed by his admiration, that not until he heard his own name pronounced did he become aware that he was not the sole tenant of the conservatory. Turning at the sound, he perceived Annie Grant, in a very becoming costume, busily employed in altering the arrangement of certain flower-pots.