Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 01

								

hour in which thought itself had something of the holiness of prayer; and
if (turning from dreams divine to earlier visions) this also was the hour
in which the heart painted and peopled its own fairyland below, of the
two ideal worlds that stretch beyond the inch of time on which we stand,
Imagination is perhaps holier than Memory.
So now, as the day crept on, Evelyn returned in a more sober mood, and
then she joined her mother and Mrs. Leslie at breakfast; and then the
household cares--such as they were--devolved upon her, heiress though she
was; and, that duty done, once more the straw hat and Sultan were in
requisition; and opening a little gate at the back of the cottage, she
took the path along the village churchyard that led to the house of the
old curate.  The burial-ground itself was surrounded and shut in with a
belt of trees.  Save the small time-discoloured church and the roofs of
the cottage and the minister's house, no building--not even a cotter's
hut--was visible there.  Beneath a dark and single yew-tree in the centre
of the ground was placed a rude seat; opposite to this seat was a grave,
distinguished from the rest by a slight palisade.  As the young Evelyn
passed slowly by this spot, a glove on the long damp grass beside the
yew-tree caught her eye.  She took it up and sighed,--it was her
mother's.  She sighed, for she thought of the soft melancholy on that
mother's face which her caresses and her mirth never could wholly chase
away.  She wondered why that melancholy was so fixed a habit, for the
young ever wonder why the experienced should be sad.
And now Evelyn had passed the churchyard, and was on the green turf
before the minister's quaint, old-fashioned house.  The old man himself
was at work in his garden; but he threw down his hoe as he saw Evelyn,
and came cheerfully up to greet her.
It was easy to see how dear she was to him.
"So you are come for your daily lesson, my young pupil?"
"Yes; but Tasso can wait if the--"
"If the tutor wants to play truant; no, my child; and, indeed, the lesson
must be longer than usual to-day, for I fear I shall have to leave you
to-morrow for some days."
"Leave us! why?--leave Brook-Green--impossible!"
"Not at all impossible; for we have now a new vicar, and I must turn
courtier in my old age, and ask him to leave me with my flock.  He is at
Weymouth, and has written to me to visit him there.  So, Miss Evelyn, I
must give you a holiday task to learn while I am away."
Evelyn brushed the tears from her eyes--for when the heart is full of
affection the eyes easily run over--and clung mournfully to the old man,
as she gave utterance to all her half-childish, half-womanly grief at the
thought of parting so soon with him.  And what, too, could her mother do
without him; and why could he not write to the vicar instead of going to
him?
The curate, who was childless and a bachelor, was not insensible to the