Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 01

								

the little cottage piano in her own dressing-room removed into
Caroline's--Caroline must be fond of music.  She had some doubts of
transferring a cage with two canaries into Caroline's room also; but when
she approached the cage with that intention, the birds chirped so
merrily, and seemed so glad to see her, and so expectant of sugar, that
her heart smote her for her meditated desertion and ingratitude.  No, she
could not give up the canaries; but the glass bowl with the goldfish--oh,
that would look so pretty on its stand just by the casement; and the
fish--dull things!--would not miss her.
The morning, the noon, the probable hour of the important arrival came at
last; and after having three times within the last half-hour visited the
rooms, and settled and unsettled and settled again everything before
arranged, Evelyn retired to her own room to consult her wardrobe, and
Margaret,--once her nurse, now her abigail.  Alas! the wardrobe of the
destined Lady Vargrave--the betrothed of a rising statesman, a new and
now an ostentatious peer; the heiress of the wealthy Templeton--was one
that many a tradesman's daughter would have disdained.  Evelyn visited so
little; the clergyman of the place, and two old maids who lived most
respectably on a hundred and eighty pounds a year, in a cottage, with one
maidservant, two cats, and a footboy, bounded the circle of her
acquaintance.  Her mother was so indifferent to dress; she herself had
found so many other ways of spending money!--but Evelyn was not now more
philosophical than others of her age.  She turned from muslin to
muslin--from the coloured to the white, from the white to the
coloured--with pretty anxiety and sorrowful suspense.  At last she
decided on the newest, and when it was on, and the single rose set in the
lustrous and beautiful hair, Carson herself could not have added a charm.
Happy age!  Who wants the arts of the milliner at seventeen?
"And here, miss; here's the fine necklace Lord Vargrave brought down when
my lord came last; it will look so grand!"
The emeralds glittered in their case; Evelyn looked at them irresolutely;
then, as she looked, a shade came over her forehead, and she sighed, and
closed the lid.
"No, Margaret, I do not want it; take it away."
"Oh, dear, miss! what would my lord say if he were down!  And they are so
beautiful! they will look so fine!  Deary me, how they sparkle!  But you
will wear much finer when you are my lady."
"I hear Mamma's bell; go, Margaret, she wants you."
Left alone, the young beauty sank down abstractedly, and though the
looking-glass was opposite, it did not arrest her eye; she forgot her
wardrobe, her muslin dress, her fears, and her guests.
"Ah," she thought, "what a weight of dread I feel here when I think of
Lord Vargrave and this fatal engagement; and every day I feel it more and
more.  To leave my dear, dear mother, the dear cottage--oh!  I never can.
I used to like him when I was a child; now I shudder at his name.  Why is