Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete

								

pale than usual; and her slight and delicate form, with its gliding
motion and noiseless step, had in it something almost ethereal and
unearthly.
Evelyn turned and saw her, and her heart smote her. Her mother, so
wedded to the dear cottage--and had this gay stranger rendered that dear
cottage less attractive,--she who had said she could live and die in
its humble precincts? Abruptly she left her new friend, hastened to her
mother, and threw her arms fondly round her.
"You are pale; you have over-fatigued yourself. Where have you been? Why
did you not take me with you?"
Lady Vargrave pressed Evelyn's hand affectionately.
"You care for me too much," said she. "I am but a dull companion for
you; I was so glad to see you happy with one better suited to your gay
spirits. What can we do when she leaves us?"
"Ah, I want no companion but my own, own mother. And have I not Sultan,
too?" added Evelyn, smiling away the tear that had started to her eyes.

CHAPTER VIII.


FRIEND after friend departs;

    Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts

    That finds not here an end.--J. MONTGOMERY.
THAT night Mrs. Leslie sought Lady Vargrave in her own room. As she
entered gently she observed that, late as the hour was, Lady Vargrave
was stationed by the open window, and seemed intently gazing on the
scene below. Mrs. Leslie reached her side unperceived. The moonlight
was exceedingly bright; and just beyond the garden, from which it was
separated but by a slight fence, lay the solitary churchyard of the
hamlet, with the slender spire of the holy edifice rising high and
tapering into the shining air. It was a calm and tranquillizing scene;
and so intent was Lady Vargrave's abstracted gaze, that Mrs. Leslie was
unwilling to disturb her revery.
At length Lady Vargrave turned; and there was that patient and pathetic
resignation written in her countenance which belongs to those whom the
world can deceive no more, and who have fixed their hearts in the life
beyond.
Mrs. Leslie, whatever she thought or felt, said nothing, except in
kindly remonstrance on the indiscretion of braving the night air. The
window was closed; they sat down to confer.
Mrs. Leslie repeated the invitation given to Evelyn, and urged the
advisability of accepting it. "It is cruel to separate you," said she;
"I feel it acutely. Why not, then, come with Evelyn? You shake your
head: why always avoid society? So young, yet you give yourself too much
to the past!"
Lady Vargrave rose, and walked to a cabinet at the end of the room; she
unlocked it, and beckoned to Mrs. Leslie to approach. In a drawer lay
carefully folded articles of female dress,--rude, homely, ragged,--the
dress of a peasant girl.
"Do these remind you of your first charity to me?" she said touchingly:
"they tell me that I have nothing to do with the world in which you and
yours, and Evelyn herself, should move."