'It's nothing,' cried I, ready to stamp with vexation because the candle
would not light. Then, suppressing my irritation, I added, 'I've been
walking too fast, that's all. Good-night,' and marched off to bed,
regardless of the 'Walking too fast! where have you been?' that was
called after me from below.

My mother followed me to the very door of my room with her questionings
and advice concerning my health and my conduct; but I implored her to let
me alone till morning; and she withdrew, and at length I had the
satisfaction to hear her close her own door. There was no sleep for me,
however, that night as I thought; and instead of attempting to solicit
it, I employed myself in rapidly pacing the chamber, having first removed
my boots, lest my mother should hear me. But the boards creaked, and she
was watchful. I had not walked above a quarter of an hour before she was
at the door again.

'Gilbert, why are you not in bed--you said you wanted to go?'

'Confound it! I'm going,' said I.

'But why are you so long about it? You must have something on your
mind--'

'For heaven's sake, let me alone, and get to bed yourself.'

'Can it be that Mrs. Graham that distresses you so?'

'No, no, I tell you--it's nothing.'

'I wish to goodness it mayn't,' murmured she, with a sigh, as she
returned to her own apartment, while I threw myself on the bed, feeling
most undutifully disaffected towards her for having deprived me of what
seemed the only shadow of a consolation that remained, and chained me to
that wretched couch of thorns.

Never did I endure so long, so miserable a night as that. And yet it was
not wholly sleepless. Towards morning my distracting thoughts began to
lose all pretensions to coherency, and shape themselves into confused and
feverish dreams, and, at length, there followed an interval of
unconscious slumber. But then the dawn of bitter recollection that
succeeded--the waking to find life a blank, and worse than a blank,
teeming with torment and misery--not a mere barren wilderness, but full
of thorns and briers--to find myself deceived, duped, hopeless, my
affections trampled upon, my angel not an angel, and my friend a fiend
incarnate--it was worse than if I had not slept at all.

It was a dull, gloomy morning; the weather had changed like my prospects,
and the rain was pattering against the window. I rose, nevertheless, and
went out; not to look after the farm, though that would serve as my