Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete

								

thus spoken to you before; but I have long, long thought with grief that
I was insufficient to my mother's happiness,--I who love her so dearly.
And now, since Mrs. Leslie has been here, I find her conversing with
this comparative stranger so much more confidentially than with me. When
I come in unexpectedly, they cease their conference, as if I were not
worthy to share it; and--and oh, if I could but make you understand
that all I desire is that my mother should love me and know me and trust
me--"
"Evelyn," said the curate, coldly, "you love your mother, and justly;
a kinder and a gentler heart than hers does not beat in a human breast.
Her first wish in life is for your happiness and welfare. You ask for
confidence, but why not confide in her; why not believe her actuated by
the best and the tenderest motives; why not leave it to her discretion
to reveal to you any secret grief, if such there be, that preys
upon her; why add to that grief by any selfish indulgence of
over-susceptibility in yourself? My dear pupil, you are yet almost a
child; and they who have sorrowed may well be reluctant to sadden with a
melancholy confidence those to whom sorrow is yet unknown. This much,
at least, I may tell you,--for this much she does not seek to
conceal,--that Lady Vargrave was early inured to trials from which you,
more happy, have been saved. She speaks not to you of her relations, for
she has none left on earth. And after her marriage with your benefactor,
Evelyn, perhaps it seemed to her a matter of principle to banish all
vain regret, all remembrance if possible, of an earlier tie."
"My poor, poor mother! Oh, yes, you are right; forgive me. She yet
mourns, perhaps, my father, whom I never saw, whom I feel, as it were,
tacitly forbid to name,--you did not know him?"
"Him!--whom?"
"My father, my mother's first husband."
"No."
"But I am sure I could not have loved him so well as my benefactor,
my real and second father, who is now dead and gone. Oh, how well I
remember him,--how fondly!" Here Evelyn stopped and burst into tears.
"You do right to remember him thus; to love and revere his memory,--a
father indeed he was to you. But now, Evelyn, my own dear child, hear
me. Respect the silent heart of your mother; let her not think that her
misfortunes, whatever they may be, can cast a shadow over you,--you, her
last hope and blessing. Rather than seek to open the old wounds, suffer
them to heal, as they must, beneath the influences of religion and time;
and wait the hour when without, perhaps, too keen a grief, your mother
can go back with you into the past."
"I will, I will! Oh, how wicked, how ungracious I have been! It was but
an excess of love, believe it, dear Mr. Aubrey, believe it."
"I do believe it, my poor Evelyn; and now I know that I may trust in
you. Come, dry those bright eyes, or they will think I have been a hard