Nevertheless, although I do not mean to say that Lady Anne Mellent was not at all affected by the weather, yet her grave and meditative mood had other, stronger causes. She had a great deal to think of just then; and she leaned her fair brow upon her hand, the thick glossy ringlets falling over her taper fingers, and her eyes fixed upon a sheet of writing-paper, whereon her other hand was fancifully sketching all sorts of strange figures. Her mind had nothing to do with what her hand was about or what her eye was fixed upon. I do not know what part or portion of the strange mixed whole, expressed by the little monosyllable man, it is that occupies itself with trifles, while the high spirits, the sensitive soul, and the intellectual mind are engaged in reasonings deep of other, mightier things; but so it often is, that when the brain and heart are most busy with strong thoughts, something--I know not what--gives employment to the corporeal faculties: just as a nurse amuses a sick child with playthings while two learned doctors are consulting of its state. Thus it was now with Lady Anne. Her mind saw not the things she was drawing--the dancing men and women, the flowers, the fruits, the trees, the wild and graceful arabesques, the ruined towns and castles, the volutes, the capitals, the columns: she had not an idea of what she was about; but, deep in some little chamber of the brain, with the doors and windows closed, while Imagination held a taper and Memory spread out a map before her, the mind sat and studied the chart of the past, trying to lay out plans for carrying on into the unexplored future the roads along which her destiny had hitherto run. She was startled from her reverie by a servant opening the drawing-room door and announcing Mr. Charles Marston; and, raising her head, with a slight glow upon her cheek, she held out her hand to him with frank and kindly greeting. "Well, you have come to see me at length," she said, "and I suppose I must take your yesterday's apologies in good part, especially as I find that one of the two letters did arrive; and I have been reading this morning all the nonsense it contains, with a great deal of interest and satisfaction. There is nothing in the world like nonsense, either for pleasure or amusement. Sense is so hard, so square, and so sharp in the points, that it is always scratching one somewhere. I am sure Adam and Eve must have been talking nonsense to each other all day long in paradise, otherwise it would not have been half so pleasant a place as it is represented." Charles Marston took a seat by her side, with a very faint smile, saying-- "I am afraid, dear Lady Anne, that I must give up nonsense for the future, and devote myself to dull, hard, dry sense."