Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete

								


Produced by David Widger and Dagny

ALICE;
OR,
THE MYSTERIES

By Edward Bulwer Lytton

BOOK I.


"Thee, hid the bowering vales amidst, I call."
--EURIPIDES: Hel. I. 1116.

CHAPTER I.


Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place
Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?--LAMB.
IT was towards the evening of a day in early April that two ladies were
seated by the open windows of a cottage in Devonshire. The lawn before
them was gay with evergreens, relieved by the first few flowers and
fresh turf of the reviving spring; and at a distance, through an opening
amongst the trees, the sea, blue and tranquil, bounded the view, and
contrasted the more confined and home-like features of the scene. It was
a spot remote, sequestered, shut out from the business and pleasures of
the world; as such it suited the tastes and character of the owner.
That owner was the younger of the ladies seated by the window. You would
scarcely have guessed, from her appearance, that she was more than seven
or eight and twenty, though she exceeded by four or five years that
critical boundary in the life of beauty. Her form was slight and
delicate in its proportions, nor was her countenance the less lovely
because, from its gentleness and repose (not unmixed with a certain
sadness) the coarse and the gay might have thought it wanting in
expression. For there is a stillness in the aspect of those who have
felt deeply, which deceives the common eye,--as rivers are often alike
tranquil and profound, in proportion as they are remote from the springs
which agitated and swelled the commencement of their course, and by
which their waters are still, though invisibly, supplied.
The elder lady, the guest of her companion, was past seventy; her gray
hair was drawn back from the forehead, and gathered under a stiff cap of
quaker-like simplicity; while her dress, rich but plain, and of no very
modern fashion, served to increase the venerable appearance of one who
seemed not ashamed of years.
"My dear Mrs. Leslie," said the lady of the house, after a thoughtful
pause in the conversation that had been carried on for the last hour,
"it is very true; perhaps I was to blame in coming to this place; I
ought not to have been so selfish."
"No, my dear friend," returned Mrs. Leslie, gently; "selfish is a word
that can never be applied to you; you acted as became you,--agreeably
to your own instinctive sense of what is best when at your
age,--independent in fortune and rank, and still so lovely,--you
resigned all that would have attracted others, and devoted yourself, in
retirement, to a life of quiet and unknown benevolence. You are in your
sphere in this village,--humble though it be,--consoling, relieving,
healing the wretched, the destitute, the infirm; and teaching your
Evelyn insensibly to imitate your modest and Christian virtues." The
good old lady spoke warmly, and with tears in her eyes; her companion