When, at length, Lord Albert D'Esterre returned home, the hum of voices, and the unmeaning admixture of dancing tunes, mingled together in utter discordance, still sounded in his ears, and he felt provoked at himself for having wasted many hours so unsatisfactorily. The tension of the mind, under the action of such feelings as those which agitated his breast, is never really relieved in similar scenes or by similar means; and the false, feverish excitement produced by them, when it passes off, leaves the sufferer a thousand times more low and debilitated than before he had recourse to them. Lord Albert turned every way but the right way to find peace; and when sleep did visit him, it was not the balmy friend which comes to the pillow of an approving conscience. CHAPTER V. THE PRESENTATION AT COURT. The day at length arrived, to which so many had looked forward with lingering expectation, and which, to the young in general, was one of delightful anticipation. Among these, however, there was one who, though both young and beauteous, and likely, under other circumstances, to have enjoyed the idea of coming out into the dazzling scene of the world, remained unmoved by the general festivity, from a dread of the trial which the scene would probably bring to her feelings. Lady Delamere had communicated to Lady Dunmelraise the circumstance of her having seen Lord Albert D'Esterre the preceding evening at Almack's, and of his being engrossed the whole time with Lady Hamlet Vernon;--intelligence naturally productive of the most painful conclusions, and which, of course, received considerable aggravation in Lady Dunmelraise's mind from the excuses made by Lord Albert for not dining in South Audley-street on that day. She however felt that, although most painful, it was right to inform Adeline of this fresh instance of Lord Albert's unfeeling conduct, in order that she might, by so doing, lead her more and more to wean her affections from a person so unworthy as he now appeared to be, and help to destroy the remaining hopes which her daughter might otherwise retain of his returning affection. Lady Adeline might well have thought that she had been prepared for the worst, and imagined that her cup of sorrow was filled to the brim; but at this additional circumstance she felt, that the human heart is never so full of bitterness, but that there may be added some drops of gall. Her usual serenity, however, did not wholly forsake her; but her first impulse was to entreat her mother to spare her the trial of attending the drawing-room.