Her head felt sick and heavy; she leaned back in her carriage half stupified. When at last London and its suburbs were passed, the sight of the open country a little revived her--but she soon drooped again. Nothing presented itself to her thoughts with any clearness, and the exultation which had supported her vanished totally. She only knew that she was alone, poor, forgotten; these words hovered on her lips, mingled with others, by which she endeavoured to charm away her despondency. Fortitude and resignation for herself--freedom and happiness for Ethel. "O yes, she is free and happy--it matters not then what I am!" No tears flowed to soften this thought. The bright green country--the meadows mingled with unripe corn-fields--the tufted woods--the hedgerows full of flowers, could not attract her eye; pangs every now and then seized upon her heart--she had talked of resignation, but she was delivered up to despair. At length she sank into a kind of stupor. She was accompanied by one servant only; she had told him where she intended to remain that night. It was past eleven before they arrived at Reading; the night was chill, and she shivered while she felt as if it were impossible to move, even to draw up the glasses of her chariot. When she arrived at the inn where she was to pass the night, she felt keenly the discomfort of having no female attendant. It was new--she felt as if it were disgraceful, to find herself alone among strangers, to be obliged to give orders herself, and to prepare alone for her repose. All night she could not sleep, and she became aware at last that she was ill. She burnt with fever--her whole frame was tormented by aches, by alternate hot and shivering fits, and by a feeling of sickness. When morning dawned, it was worse. She grew impatient--she rose. She had arranged that her servant should quit her at this place. He had been but a short time with her, and was easily dismissed under the idea, that she was to be joined by a man recommended by a friend, who was accustomed to the continent, whither it was supposed that she was going. She had dismissed him the night before, he was already gone, when on the morrow she ordered the horses.--She paid the bills herself--and had to answer questions about luggage; all these things are customary to the poor, and to the other sex. But take a high-born woman and place her in immediate contact with the rough material of the world, and see how like a sensitive plant she will shrink, close herself up and droop, and feel as if she had fallen from her native sphere into a spot unknown, ungenial, and full of storms.