Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete

								

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 this? He is kind; he condescends to seek to please. It was the
wish of my poor father,--for father he really was to me; and yet--oh
that he had left me poor and free!"
At this part of Evelyn's meditation the unusual sound of wheels was
heard on the gravel; she started up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and
hurried down to welcome the expected guests.

CHAPTER V.


TELL me, Sophy, my dear, what do you think of our new visitors?
Vicar of Wakefield.
MRS. MERTON and her daughter were already in the middle drawing-room,