Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 01

								

fondness of his beautiful pupil, and perhaps he himself was a little more
distrait than usual that morning, or else Evelyn was peculiarly
inattentive; for certain it is that she reaped very little benefit from
the lesson.
Yet he was an admirable teacher, that old man!  Aware of Evelyn's quick,
susceptible, and rather fanciful character of mind, he had sought less to
curb than to refine and elevate her imagination.  Himself of no ordinary
abilities, which leisure had allowed him to cultivate, his piety was too
large and cheerful to exclude literature--Heaven's best gift--from the
pale of religion.  And under his care Evelyn's mind had been duly stored
with the treasures of modern genius, and her judgment strengthened by the
criticisms of a graceful and generous taste.
In that sequestered hamlet, the young heiress had been trained to adorn
her future station; to appreciate the arts and elegances that distinguish
(no matter what the rank) the refined from the low, better than if she
had been brought up under the hundred-handed Briareus of fashionable
education.  Lady Vargrave, indeed, like most persons of modest
pretensions and imperfect cultivation, was rather inclined to overrate
the advantages to be derived from book-knowledge; and she was never
better pleased than when she saw Evelyn opening the monthly parcel from
London, and delightedly poring over volumes which Lady Vargrave
innocently believed to be reservoirs of inexhaustible wisdom.
But this day Evelyn would not read, and the golden verses of Tasso lost
their music to her ear.  So the curate gave up the lecture, and placed a
little programme of studies to be conned during his absence in her
reluctant hand; and Sultan, who had been wistfully licking his paws for
the last half-hour, sprang up and caracoled once more into the garden;
and the old priest and the young woman left the works of man for those of
Nature.
"Do not fear, I will take such care of your garden while you are away,"
said Evelyn; "and you must write and let us know what day you are to come
back."
"My dear Evelyn, you are born to spoil every one--from Sultan to Aubrey."
"And to be spoilt too, don't forget that," cried Evelyn, laughingly
shaking back her ringlets.  "And now, before you go, will you tell me, as
you are so wise, what I can do to make--to make--my mother love me?"
Evelyn's voice faltered as she spoke the last words, and Aubrey looked
surprised and moved.
"Your mother love you, my dear Evelyn!  What do you mean,--does she not
love you?"
"Ah, not as I love her.  She is kind and gentle, I know, for she is so to
all; but she does not confide in me, she does not trust me; she has some
sorrow at heart which I am never allowed to learn and soothe.  Why does
she avoid all mention of her early days?  She never talks to me as if
she, too, had once a mother!  Why am I never to speak of her first
marriage, of my father?  Why does she look reproachfully at me, and shun