Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete

								

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
me--yes, shun me, for days together--if--if I attempt to draw her to the
past? Is there a secret? If so, am I not old enough to know it?"
Evelyn spoke quickly and nervously, and with quivering lips. Aubrey took
her hand, and pressing it, said, after a little pause,--
"Evelyn, this is the first time you have ever thus spoken to me. Has
anything chanced to arouse your--shall I call it curiosity, or shall I
call it the mortified pride of affection?"
"And you, too, aye harsh; you blame me! No, it is true that I have not