That night Florimel had her thoughts as well as Malcolm. Already life was not what it had been to her, and the feeling of a difference is often what sets one a-thinking first. While her father lived, and the sureness of his love over-arched her consciousness with a heaven of safety, the physical harmony of her nature had supplied her with a more than sufficient sense of well-being. Since his death, too, there had been times when she even fancied an enlargement of life in the sense of freedom and power which came with the knowledge of being a great lady, possessed of the rare privilege of an ancient title and an inheritance which seemed to her a yet greater wealth than it was. But she had soon found that, as to freedom, she had less of that than before--less of the feeling of it within her: not much freedom of any sort is to be had without fighting for it, and she had yet to discover that the only freedom worth the name --that of heart, and soul, and mind--is not to be gained except through the hardest of battles. She was very lonely, too. Lady Bellair had never assumed with her any authority, and had always been kind even to petting, but there was nothing about her to make a home for the girl’s heart. She felt in her no superiority, and for a spiritual home that is essential. As she learned to know her better, this sense of loneliness went on deepening, for she felt more and more that her guardian was not one in whom she could place genuine confidence, while yet her power over her was greater than she knew. The innocent nature of the girl had begun to recoil from what she saw in the woman of the world, and yet she had in herself worldliness enough to render her fully susceptible of her influences. Notwithstanding her fine health and natural spirits, Florimel had begun to know what it is to wake suddenly of a morning between three and four, and lie for a long weary time, sleepless. In youth bodily fatigue ensures falling asleep, but as soon as the body is tolerably rested, if there be unrest in the mind, that wakes it, and consciousness returns in the shape of a dull misgiving like the far echo of the approaching trump of the arch-angel. Indeed, those hours are as a vestibule to the great hall of judgment, and to such as, without rendering it absolute obedience, yet care to keep on some sort of terms with their conscience, is a time of anything but comfort. Nor does the court in those hours sitting, concern itself only with heavy questions of right or wrong, but whoever loves and cares himself for his appearance before the eyes of men, finds himself accused of paltry follies, stupidities, and indiscretions, and punished with paltry mortifications, chagrins, and anxieties. From such arraignment no man is free but him who walks in the perfect law of liberty--that is, the will of the Perfect--which alone is peace.