Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete

								

"Too tender conscience!--your errors were but those of circumstances, of
youth;--how have they been redeemed! none even suspect them. Your past
history is known but to the good old Aubrey and myself. No breath, even
of rumour, tarnishes the name of Lady Vargrave."
"Mrs. Leslie," said Lady Vargrave, reclosing the cabinet, and again
seating herself, "my world lies around me; I cannot quit it. If I were
of use to Evelyn, then indeed I would sacrifice, brave all; but I only
cloud her spirits. I have no advice to give her, no instruction to
bestow. When she was a child I could watch over her; when she was sick,
I could nurse her; but now she requires an adviser, a guide; and I feel
too sensibly that this task is beyond my powers. I, a guide to youth
and innocence,--I! No, I have nothing to offer her, dear child! but my
love and my prayers. Let your daughter take her, then,--watch over her,
guide, advise her. For me--unkind, ungrateful as it may seem--were she
but happy, I could well bear to be alone!"
"But she--how will she, who loves you so, submit to this separation?"
"It will not be long; and," added Lady Vargrave, with a serious, yet
sweet smile, "she had better be prepared for that separation which must
come at last. As year by year I outlive my last hope,--that of once more
beholding him,--I feel that life becomes feebler and feebler, and
I look more on that quiet churchyard as a home to which I am soon
returning. At all events, Evelyn will be called upon to form new ties
that must estrange her from me; let her wean herself from one so useless
to her, to all the world,--now, and by degrees."
"Speak not thus," said Mrs. Leslie, strongly affected; "you have many
years of happiness yet in store for you. The more you recede from youth,
the fairer life will become to you."
"God is good to me," said the lady, raising her meek eyes; "and I have
already found it so. I am contented."

CHAPTER IX.


THE greater part of them seemed to be charmed with his presence.
MACKENZIE: The Man of the World.
IT was with the greatest difficulty that Evelyn could at last be
persuaded to consent to the separation from her mother; she wept
bitterly at the thought. But Lady Vargrave, though touched, was firm,
and her firmness was of that soft, imploring character which Evelyn
never could resist. The visit was to last some months, it is true,
but she would return to the cottage; she would escape, too--and
this, perhaps, unconsciously reconciled her more than aught else--the
periodical visit of Lord Vargrave. At the end of July, when the
parliamentary session at that unreformed era usually expired, he always
came to Brook-Green for a month. His last visits had been most unwelcome
to Evelyn, and this next visit she dreaded more than she had any of the
former ones. It is strange,--the repugnance with which she regarded the
suit of her affianced!--she, whose heart was yet virgin; who had never
seen any one who, in form, manner, and powers to please, could be