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Little as Juliet felt disposed to renew her melancholy wanderings, her situation in this house appeared to her so humiliating, nay degrading, that neither this message, nor the fawning civilities with which, at their next meeting, Mrs. Ireton sought to mitigate her late asperity, could prevail with her to consent to any delay beyond that which was necessary for obtaining the counsel of Gabriella; to whom she wrote a detailed account of what had passed; adding, "How long must I thus waste my time and my existence, separated from all that can render them valuable, while fastened upon by constant discomfort and disgust? O friend of my heart, friend of my earliest years, earliest feelings, juvenile happiness,—and, alas! maturer sorrows! why must we thus be sundered in adversity? Oh how,—with three-fold toil, should I revive by the side of my beloved Gabriella!—Dear to me by every tie of tender recollection; dear to me by the truest compassion for her
