Alice | Page 5

the
lesson.
Yet he was an admirable teacher, that old man! Aware of Evelyn's
quick, susceptible, and rather fanciful character of mind, he had sought
less to curb than to refine and elevate her imagination. Himself of no
ordinary abilities, which leisure had allowed him to cultivate, his 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
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,