Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 02

								

readily detected the meretricious and the false.  The book that Evelyn
could admire was sure to be stamped with the impress of the noble, the
lovely, or the true!
But Evelyn had faults,--the faults of her age; or, rather, she had
tendencies that might conduce to error.  She was of so generous a nature
that the very thought of sacrificing her self for another had a charm.
She ever acted from impulse,--impulses pure and good, but often rash and
imprudent.  She was yielding to weakness, persuaded into anything, so
sensitive, that even a cold look from one moderately liked cut her to the
heart; and by the sympathy that accompanies sensitiveness, no pain to her
was so great as the thought of giving pain to another.  Hence it was that
Vargrave might form reasonable hopes of his ultimate success.  It was a
dangerous constitution for happiness!  How many chances must combine to
preserve to the mid-day of characters like this the sunshine of their
dawn!  The butterfly that seems the child of the summer and the
flowers--what wind will not chill its mirth, what touch will not brush
away its hues?

CHAPTER II.


THESE, on a general survey, are the modes
Of pulpit oratory which agree
With no unlettered audience.--POLWHELE.
MRS. LESLIE had returned from her visit to the rectory to her own home,
and Evelyn had now been some weeks at Mrs. Merton's.  As was natural, she
had grown in some measure reconciled and resigned to her change of abode.
In fact, no sooner did she pass Mrs. Merton's threshold, than, for the
first time, she was made aware of her consequence in life.
The Rev. Mr. Merton was a man of the nicest perception in all things
appertaining to worldly consideration.  The second son of a very wealthy
baronet (who was the first commoner of his county) and of the daughter of
a rich and highly-descended peer, Mr. Merton had been brought near enough
to rank and power to appreciate all their advantages.  In early life he
had been something of a "tuft-hunter;" but as his understanding was good
and his passions not very strong, he had soon perceived that that vessel
of clay, a young man with a moderate fortune, cannot long sail down the
same stream with the metal vessels of rich earls and extravagant dandies.
Besides, he was destined for the Church--because there was one of the
finest livings in England in the family.  He therefore took orders at six
and twenty; married Mrs. Leslie's daughter, who had thirty thousand
pounds: and settled at the rectory of Merton, within a mile of the family
seat.  He became a very respectable and extremely popular man.  He was
singularly hospitable, and built a new wing--containing a large
dining-room and six capital bed-rooms--to the rectory, which had now much
more the appearance of a country villa than a country parsonage.  His
brother, succeeding to the estates, and residing chiefly in the
neighbourhood, became, like his father before him, member for the county,