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+Project Gutenberg EBook, Alice, or The Mysteries, by Lytton, Book II
+#204 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
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+
+Title: Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+Release Date: January 2006  [EBook #9764]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
+
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ALICE, BY LYTTON, BOOK II ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; and by David Widger
+
+
+Corrected and updated text and HTML PG Editions of the complete
+11 volume set may be found at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9774/9774.txt
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9774/9774-h/9774-h.htm
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+  "The hour arrived--years having rolled away
+  When his return the Gods no more delay.
+  Lo! Ithaca the Fates award; and there
+  New trials meet the Wanderer."
+  HOMER: _Od._ lib. i, 16.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  THERE is continual spring and harvest here--
+    Continual, both meeting at one time;
+  For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear,
+    And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime;
+  And eke at once the heavy trees they climb,
+    Which seem to labour under their fruit's load.
+
+  SPENSER: _The Garden of Adonis_.
+
+                    Vis boni
+  In ipsa inesset forma.*--TERENCE.
+
+  * "Even in beauty there exists the power of virtue."
+
+BEAUTY, thou art twice blessed; thou blessest the gazer and the
+possessor; often at once the effect and the cause of goodness!  A sweet
+disposition, a lovely soul, an affectionate nature, will speak in the
+eyes, the lips, the brow, and become the cause of beauty.  On the other
+hand, they who have a gift that commands love, a key that opens all
+hearts, are ordinarily inclined to look with happy eyes upon the
+world,--to be cheerful and serene, to hope and to confide.  There is more
+wisdom than the vulgar dream of in our admiration of a fair face.
+
+Evelyn Cameron was beautiful,--a beauty that came from the heart, and
+went to the heart; a beauty, the very spirit of which was love!  Love
+smiled on her dimpled lips, it reposed on her open brow, it played in the
+profuse and careless ringlets of darkest yet sunniest auburn, which a
+breeze could lift from her delicate and virgin cheek; Love, in all its
+tenderness, in all its kindness, its unsuspecting truth,--Love coloured
+every thought, murmured in her low melodious voice, in all its symmetry
+and glorious womanhood.  Love swelled the swan-like neck, and moulded the
+rounded limb.
+
+She was just the kind of person that takes the judgment by storm: whether
+gay or grave, there was so charming and irresistible a grace about her.
+She seemed born, not only to captivate the giddy, but to turn the heads
+of the sage.  Roxalana was nothing to her.  How, in the obscure hamlet of
+Brook-Green, she had learned all the arts of pleasing it is impossible to
+say.  In her arch smile, the pretty toss of her head, the half shyness,
+half freedom, of her winning ways, it was as if Nature had made her to
+delight one heart, and torment all others.
+
+Without being learned, the mind of Evelyn was cultivated and well
+informed.  Her heart, perhaps, helped to instruct her understanding; for
+by a kind of intuition she could appreciate all that was beautiful and
+elevated.  Her unvitiated and guileless taste had a logic of its own: no
+schoolman had ever a quicker penetration into truth, no critic ever more
+readily detected the meretricious and the false.  The book that Evelyn
+could admire was sure to be stamped with the impress of the noble, the
+lovely, or the true!
+
+But Evelyn had faults,--the faults of her age; or, rather, she had
+tendencies that might conduce to error.  She was of so generous a nature
+that the very thought of sacrificing her self for another had a charm.
+She ever acted from impulse,--impulses pure and good, but often rash and
+imprudent.  She was yielding to weakness, persuaded into anything, so
+sensitive, that even a cold look from one moderately liked cut her to the
+heart; and by the sympathy that accompanies sensitiveness, no pain to her
+was so great as the thought of giving pain to another.  Hence it was that
+Vargrave might form reasonable hopes of his ultimate success.  It was a
+dangerous constitution for happiness!  How many chances must combine to
+preserve to the mid-day of characters like this the sunshine of their
+dawn!  The butterfly that seems the child of the summer and the
+flowers--what wind will not chill its mirth, what touch will not brush
+away its hues?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  THESE, on a general survey, are the modes
+  Of pulpit oratory which agree
+  With no unlettered audience.--POLWHELE.
+
+MRS. LESLIE had returned from her visit to the rectory to her own home,
+and Evelyn had now been some weeks at Mrs. Merton's.  As was natural, she
+had grown in some measure reconciled and resigned to her change of abode.
+In fact, no sooner did she pass Mrs. Merton's threshold, than, for the
+first time, she was made aware of her consequence in life.
+
+The Rev. Mr. Merton was a man of the nicest perception in all things
+appertaining to worldly consideration.  The second son of a very wealthy
+baronet (who was the first commoner of his county) and of the daughter of
+a rich and highly-descended peer, Mr. Merton had been brought near enough
+to rank and power to appreciate all their advantages.  In early life he
+had been something of a "tuft-hunter;" but as his understanding was good
+and his passions not very strong, he had soon perceived that that vessel
+of clay, a young man with a moderate fortune, cannot long sail down the
+same stream with the metal vessels of rich earls and extravagant dandies.
+Besides, he was destined for the Church--because there was one of the
+finest livings in England in the family.  He therefore took orders at six
+and twenty; married Mrs. Leslie's daughter, who had thirty thousand
+pounds: and settled at the rectory of Merton, within a mile of the family
+seat.  He became a very respectable and extremely popular man.  He was
+singularly hospitable, and built a new wing--containing a large
+dining-room and six capital bed-rooms--to the rectory, which had now much
+more the appearance of a country villa than a country parsonage.  His
+brother, succeeding to the estates, and residing chiefly in the
+neighbourhood, became, like his father before him, member for the county,
+and was one of the country gentlemen most looked up to in the House of
+Commons.  A sensible and frequent, though uncommonly prosy speaker,
+singularly independent (for he had a clear fourteen thousand pounds a
+year, and did not desire office), and valuing himself on not being a
+party man, so that his vote on critical questions was often a matter of
+great doubt, and, therefore, of great moment, Sir John Merton gave
+considerable importance to the Rev. Charles Merton.  The latter kept up
+all the more select of his old London acquaintances; and few country
+houses, at certain seasons of the year, were filled more aristocratically
+than the pleasant rectory-house.  Mr. Merton, indeed, contrived to make
+the Hall a reservoir for the parsonage, and periodically drafted off the
+_elite_ of the visitors at the former to spend a few days at the latter.
+This was the more easily done, as his brother was a widower, and his
+conversation was all of one sort,--the state of the nation and the
+agricultural interest.  Mr. Merton was upon very friendly terms with his
+brother, looked after the property in the absence of Sir John, kept up
+the family interest, was an excellent electioneerer, a good speaker at a
+pinch, an able magistrate,--a man, in short, most useful in the county;
+on the whole, he was more popular than his brother, and almost as much
+looked up to--perhaps, because he was much less ostentatious.  He had
+very good taste, had the Rev. Charles Merton!--his table plentiful, but
+plain--his manners affable to the low, though agreeably sycophantic to
+the high; and there was nothing about him that ever wounded self-love.
+To add to the attractions of his house, his wife, simple and
+good-tempered, could talk with anybody, take off the bores, and leave
+people to be comfortable in their own way: while he had a large family of
+fine children of all ages, that had long given easy and constant excuse
+under the name of "little children's parties," for getting up an
+impromptu dance or a gypsy dinner,--enlivening the neighbourhood, in
+short.  Caroline was the eldest; then came a son, attached to a foreign
+ministry, and another, who, though only nineteen, was a private secretary
+to one of our Indian satraps.  The acquaintance of these young gentlemen,
+thus engaged, it was therefore Evelyn's misfortune to lose the advantage
+of cultivating,--a loss which both Mr. and Mrs. Merton assured her was
+very much to be regretted.  But to make up to her for such a privation
+there were two lovely little girls, one ten, and the other seven years
+old, who fell in love with Evelyn at first sight.  Caroline was one of
+the beauties of the county, clever and conversable, "drew young men," and
+set the fashion to young ladies, especially when she returned from
+spending the season with Lady Elizabeth.
+
+It was a delightful family!
+
+In person, Mr. Merton was of the middle height; fair, and inclined to
+stoutness, with small features, beautiful teeth, and great suavity of
+address.  Mindful still of the time when he had been "about town," he was
+very particular in his dress: his black coat, neatly relieved in the
+evening by a white underwaistcoat, and a shirt-front admirably plaited,
+with plain studs of dark enamel, his well-cut trousers, and elaborately
+polished shoes--he was good-humouredly vain of his feet and hands--won
+for him the common praise of the dandies (who occasionally honoured him
+with a visit to shoot his game, and flirt with his daughter), "That old
+Merton was a most gentlemanlike fellow--so d-----d neat for a parson!"
+
+Such, mentally, morally, and physically, was the Rev. Charles Merton,
+rector of Merton, brother of Sir John, and possessor of an income that,
+what with his rich living, his wife's fortune, and his own, which was not
+inconsiderable, amounted to between four and five thousand pounds a year,
+which income, managed with judgment as well as liberality, could not fail
+to secure to him all the good things of this world,--the respect of his
+friends amongst the rest.  Caroline was right when she told Evelyn that
+her papa was very different from a mere country parson.
+
+Now this gentleman could not fail to see all the claims that Evelyn might
+fairly advance upon the esteem, nay, the veneration of himself and
+family: a young beauty, with a fortune of about a quarter of a million,
+was a phenomenon that might fairly be called celestial.  Her pretensions
+were enhanced by her engagement to Lord Vargrave,--an engagement which
+might be broken; so that, as he interpreted it, the _worst_ that could
+happen to the young lady was to marry an able and rising Minister of
+State,--a peer of the realm; but she was perfectly free to marry a still
+greater man, if she could find him; and who knows but what perhaps the
+_attache_, if he could get leave of absence?  Mr. Merton was too sensible
+to pursue that thought further for the present.
+
+The good man was greatly shocked at the too familiar manner in which Mrs.
+Merton spoke to this high-fated heiress, at Evelyn's travelling so far
+without her own maid, at her very primitive wardrobe--poor, ill-used
+child!  Mr. Merton was a connoisseur in ladies' dress.  It was quite
+painful to see that the unfortunate girl had been so neglected.  Lady
+Vargrave must be a very strange person.  He inquired compassionately
+whether she was allowed any pocket money; and finding, to his relief,
+that in that respect Miss Cameron was munificently supplied, he suggested
+that a proper abigail should be immediately engaged; that proper orders
+to Madame Devy should be immediately transmitted to London, with one of
+Evelyn's dresses, as a pattern for nothing but length and breadth.  He
+almost stamped with vexation when he heard that Evelyn had been placed in
+one of the neat little rooms generally appropriated to young lady
+visitors.
+
+"She is quite contented, my dear Mr. Merton; she is so simple; she has
+not been brought up in the style you think for."
+
+"Mrs. Merton," said the rector, with great solemnity, "Miss Cameron may
+know no better now; but what will she think of us hereafter?  It is my
+maxim to recollect what people will be, and show them that respect which
+may leave pleasing impressions when they have it in their power to show
+us civility in return."
+
+With many apologies, which quite overwhelmed poor Evelyn, she was
+transferred from the little chamber, with its French bed and
+bamboo-coloured washhand-stand, to an apartment with a buhl wardrobe and
+a four-post bed with green silk curtains, usually appropriated to the
+regular Christmas visitant, the Dowager Countess of Chipperton.  A pretty
+morning room communicated with the sleeping apartment, and thence a
+private staircase conducted into the gardens.  The whole family were duly
+impressed and re-impressed with her importance.  No queen could be made
+more of.  Evelyn mistook it all for pure kindness, and returned the
+hospitality with an affection that extended to the whole family, but
+particularly to the two little girls, and a beautiful black spaniel.  Her
+dresses came down from London; her abigail arrived; the buhl wardrobe was
+duly filled,--and Evelyn at last learned that it is a fine thing to be
+rich.  An account of all these proceedings was forwarded to Lady
+Vargrave, in a long and most complacent letter, by the rector himself.
+The answer was short, but it contented the excellent clergyman; for it
+approved of all he had done, and begged that Miss Cameron might have
+everything that seemed proper to her station.
+
+By the same post came two letters to Evelyn herself,--one from Lady
+Vargrave, one from the curate.  They transported her from the fine room
+and the buhl wardrobe to the cottage and the lawn; and the fine abigail,
+when she came to dress her young lady's hair, found her weeping.
+
+It was a matter of great regret to the rector that it was that time of
+year when--precisely because the country is most beautiful--every one
+worth knowing is in town.  Still, however, some stray guests found their
+way to the rectory for a day or two, and still there were some
+aristocratic old families in the neighbourhood, who never went up to
+London: so that two days in the week the rector's wine flowed, the
+whist-tables were set out, and the piano called into requisition.
+
+Evelyn--the object of universal attention and admiration--was put at her
+ease by her station itself; for good manners come like an instinct to
+those on whom the world smiles.  Insensibly she acquired self-possession
+and the smoothness of society; and if her child-like playfulness broke
+out from all conventional restraint, it only made more charming and
+brilliant the great heiress, whose delicate and fairy cast of beauty so
+well became her graceful _abandon_ of manner, and who looked so
+unequivocally ladylike to the eyes that rested on Madame Devy's blondes
+and satins.
+
+Caroline was not so gay as she had been at the cottage.  Something seemed
+to weigh upon her spirits: she was often moody and thoughtful.  She was
+the only one in the family not good-tempered; and her peevish replies to
+her parents, when no visitor imposed a check on the family circle,
+inconceivably pained Evelyn, and greatly contrasted the flow of spirits
+which distinguished her when she found somebody worth listening to.
+Still Evelyn--who, where she once liked, found it difficult to withdraw
+regard--sought to overlook Caroline's blemishes, and to persuade herself
+of a thousand good qualities below the surface; and her generous nature
+found constant opportunity of venting itself in costly gifts, selected
+from the London parcels, with which the officious Mr. Merton relieved the
+monotony of the rectory.  These gifts Caroline could not refuse without
+paining her young friend.  She took them reluctantly, for, to do her
+justice, Caroline, though ambitious, was not mean.
+
+Thus time passed in the rectory, in gay variety and constant
+entertainment; and all things combined to spoil the heiress, if, indeed,
+goodness ever is spoiled by kindness and prosperity.  Is it to the frost
+or to the sunshine that the flower opens its petals, or the fruit ripens
+from the blossom?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  _Rod_.    How sweet these solitary places are!
+
+    .  .  .  .  .  .
+
+  _Ped_.    What strange musick
+            Was that we heard afar off?
+
+  _Curio_.  We've told you what he is, what time we've sought him,
+            His nature and his name.
+
+  BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.  _The Pilgrim_.
+
+ONE day, as the ladies were seated in Mrs. Merton's morning-room, Evelyn,
+who had been stationed by the window hearing the little Cecilia go
+through the French verbs, and had just finished that agreeable task,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"Do tell me to whom that old house belongs, with the picturesque
+gable-end and Gothic turrets, there, just peeping through the trees,--I
+have always forgot to ask you."
+
+"Oh, my dear Miss Cameron," said Mrs. Merton, "that is Burleigh; have you
+not been there?  How stupid in Caroline not to show it to you!  It is one
+of the lions of the place.  It belongs to a man you have often heard
+of,--Mr. Maltravers."
+
+"Indeed!" cried Evelyn; and she gazed with new interest on the gray
+melancholy pile, as the sunshine brought it into strong contrast with the
+dark pines around it.  "And Mr. Maltravers himself--?"
+
+"Is still abroad, I believe; though I did hear the other day that he was
+shortly expected at Burleigh.  It is a curious old place, though much
+neglected.  I believe, indeed, it has not been furnished since the time
+of Charles the First.  (Cissy, my love, don't stoop so.)  Very gloomy, in
+my opinion; and not any fine room in the house, except the library, which
+was once a chapel.  However, people come miles to see it."
+
+"Will you go there to-day?" said Caroline, languidly; "it is a very
+pleasant walk through the glebe-land and the wood,--not above half a mile
+by the foot-path."
+
+"I should like it so much."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Merton, "and you had better go before he returns,--he is
+so strange.  He does not allow it to be seen when he is down.  But,
+indeed, he has only been once at the old place since he was of age.
+(Sophy, you will tear Miss Cameron's scarf to pieces; do be quiet,
+child.) That was before he was a great man; he was then very odd, saw no
+society, only dined once with us, though Mr. Merton paid him every
+attention.  They show the room in which he wrote his books."
+
+"I remember him very well, though I was then but a child," said
+Caroline,--"a handsome, thoughtful face."
+
+"Did you think so, my dear?  Fine eyes and teeth, certainly, and a
+commanding figure, but nothing more."
+
+"Well," said Caroline, "if you like to go, Evelyn, I am at your service."
+
+"And--I--Evy, dear--I--may go," said Cecilia, clinging to Evelyn.
+
+"And me, too," lisped Sophia, the youngest hope,--"there's such a pretty
+peacock."
+
+"Oh, yes, they may go, Mrs. Merton, we'll take such care of them."
+
+"Very well, my dear; Miss Cameron quite spoils you."
+
+Evelyn tripped away to put on her bonnet, and the children ran after her,
+clapping their hands,--they could not bear to lose sight of her for a
+moment.
+
+"Caroline," said Mrs. Merton, affectionately, "are you not well?  You
+have seemed pale lately, and not in your usual spirits."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm well enough," answered Caroline, rather peevishly; "but
+this place is so dull now; very provoking that Lady Elizabeth does not go
+to London this year."
+
+"My dear, it will be gayer, I hope, in July, when the races at Knaresdean
+begin; and Lord Vargrave has promised to come."
+
+"Has Lord Vargrave written to you lately?"
+
+"No, my dear."
+
+"Very odd."
+
+"Does Evelyn ever talk of him?"
+
+"Not much," said Caroline, rising and quitting the room.
+
+It was a most cheerful exhilarating day,--the close of sweet May; the
+hedges were white with blossoms; a light breeze rustled the young leaves;
+the butterflies had ventured forth, and the children chased them over the
+grass, as Evelyn and Caroline, who walked much too slow for her companion
+(Evelyn longed to run), followed them soberly towards Burleigh.
+
+They passed the glebe-fields; and a little bridge, thrown over a brawling
+rivulet, conducted them into a wood.
+
+"This stream," said Caroline, "forms the boundary between my uncle's
+estates and those of Mr. Maltravers.  It must be very unpleasant to so
+proud a man as Mr. Maltravers is said to be, to have the land of another
+proprietor so near his house.  He could hear my uncle's gun from his very
+drawing-room.  However, Sir John takes care not to molest him.  On the
+other side, the Burleigh estates extend for some miles; indeed, Mr.
+Maltravers is the next great proprietor to my uncle in this part of the
+county.  Very strange that he does not marry!  There, now you can see the
+house."
+
+The mansion lay somewhat low, with hanging woods in the rear: and the
+old-fashioned fish-ponds gleaming in the sunshine and overshadowed by
+gigantic trees increased the venerable stillness of its aspect.  Ivy and
+innumerable creepers covered one side of the house; and long weeds
+cumbered the deserted road.
+
+"It is sadly neglected," said Caroline; "and was so, even in the last
+owner's life.  Mr. Maltravers inherits the place from his mother's uncle.
+We may as well enter the house by the private way.  The front entrance is
+kept locked up."
+
+Winding by a path that conducted into a flower-garden, divided from the
+park by a ha-ha, over which a plank and a small gate, rusting off its
+hinges, were placed, Caroline led the way towards the building.  At this
+point of view it presented a large bay window that by a flight of four
+steps led into the garden.  On one side rose a square, narrow turret,
+surmounted by a gilt dome and quaint weathercock, below the architrave of
+which was a sun-dial, set in the stonework; and another dial stood in the
+garden, with the common and beautiful motto,--
+
+  "Non numero horas, nisi serenas!"*
+
+  * "I number not the hours, unless sunny."
+
+On the other side of the bay window a huge buttress cast its mass of
+shadow.  There was something in the appearance of the whole place that
+invited to contemplation and repose,--something almost monastic.  The
+gayety of the teeming spring-time could not divest the spot of a certain
+sadness, not displeasing, however, whether to the young, to whom there is
+a luxury in the vague sentiment of melancholy, or to those who, having
+known real griefs, seek for an anodyne in meditation and memory.  The low
+lead-coloured door, set deep in the turret, was locked, and the bell
+beside it broken.  Caroline turned impatiently away.  "We must go round
+to the other side," said she, "and try to make the deaf old man hear us."
+
+"Oh, Carry!" cried Cecilia, "the great window is open;" and she ran up
+the steps.
+
+"That is lucky," said Caroline; and the rest followed Cecilia.
+
+Evelyn now stood within the library of which Mrs. Merton had spoken.  It
+was a large room, about fifty feet in length, and proportionably wide;
+somewhat dark, for the light came only from the one large window through
+which they entered; and though the window rose to the cornice of the
+ceiling, and took up one side of the apartment, the daylight was subdued
+by the heaviness of the stonework in which the narrow panes were set, and
+by the glass stained with armorial bearings in the upper part of the
+casement.  The bookcases, too, were of the dark oak which so much absorbs
+the light; and the gilding, formerly meant to relieve them, was
+discoloured by time.
+
+The room was almost disproportionably lofty; the ceiling, elaborately
+coved, and richly carved with grotesque masks, preserved the Gothic
+character of the age in which it had been devoted to a religious purpose.
+Two fireplaces, with high chimney-pieces of oak, in which were inserted
+two portraits, broke the symmetry of the tall bookcases.  In one of these
+fireplaces were half-burnt logs; and a huge armchair, with a small
+reading-desk beside it, seemed to bespeak the recent occupation of the
+room.  On the fourth side, opposite the window, the wall was covered with
+faded tapestry, representing the meeting of Solomon and the Queen of
+Sheba; the arras was nailed over doors on either hand,--the chinks
+between the door and the wall serving, in one instance, to cut off in the
+middle his wise majesty, who was making a low bow; while in the other it
+took the ground from under the wanton queen, just as she was descending
+from her chariot.
+
+Near the window stood a grand piano, the only modern article in the room,
+save one of the portraits, presently to be described.  On all this Evelyn
+gazed silently and devoutly: she had naturally that reverence for genius
+which is common to the enthusiastic and young; and there is, even to the
+dullest, a certain interest in the homes of those who have implanted
+within us a new thought.  But here there was, she imagined, a rare and
+singular harmony between the place and the mental characteristics of the
+owner.  She fancied she now better understood the shadowy and
+metaphysical repose of thought that had distinguished the earlier
+writings of Maltravers,--the writings composed or planned in this still
+retreat.
+
+But what particularly caught her attention was one of the two portraits
+that adorned the mantelpieces.  The further one was attired in the rich
+and fanciful armour of the time of Elizabeth; the head bare, the helmet
+on a table on which the hand rested.  It was a handsome and striking
+countenance; and an inscription announced it to be a Digby, an ancestor
+of Maltravers.
+
+But the other was a beautiful girl of about eighteen, in the now almost
+antiquated dress of forty years ago.  The features were delicate, but the
+colours somewhat faded, and there was something mournful in the
+expression.  A silk curtain, drawn on one side, seemed to denote how
+carefully it was prized by the possessor.
+
+Evelyn turned for explanation to her cicerone.
+
+"This is the second time I have seen that picture," said Caroline; "for
+it is only by great entreaty and as a mysterious favour that the old
+housekeeper draws aside the veil.  Some touch of sentiment in Maltravers
+makes him regard it as sacred.  It is the picture of his mother before
+she married; she died in giving him birth."
+
+Evelyn sighed; how well she understood the sentiment which seemed to
+Caroline so eccentric!  The countenance fascinated her; the eye seemed to
+follow her as she turned.
+
+"As a proper pendant to this picture," said Caroline, "he ought to have
+dismissed the effigies of yon warlike gentleman, and replaced it by one
+of poor Lady Florence Lascelles, for whose loss he is said to have
+quitted his country: but, perhaps, it was the loss of her fortune."
+
+"How can you say so?--fie!" cried Evelyn, with a burst of generous
+indignation.
+
+"Ah, my dear, you heiresses have a fellow-feeling with each other!
+Nevertheless, clever men are less sentimental than we deem them.  Heigho!
+this quiet room gives me the spleen, I fancy."
+
+"Dearest Evy," whispered Cecilia, "I think you have a look of that pretty
+picture, only you are much prettier.  Do take off your bonnet; your hair
+just falls down like hers."
+
+Evelyn shook her head gravely; but the spoiled child hastily untied the
+ribbons and snatched away the hat, and Evelyn's sunny ringlets fell down
+in beautiful disorder.  There was no resemblance between Evelyn and the
+portrait, except in the colour of the hair, and the careless fashion it
+now by chance assumed.  Yet Evelyn was pleased to think that a likeness
+did exist, though Caroline declared it was a most unflattering
+compliment.
+
+"I don't wonder," said the latter, changing the theme,--"I don't wonder
+Mr. Maltravers lives so little in this 'Castle Dull;' yet it might be
+much improved.  French windows and plate-glass, for instance; and if
+those lumbering bookshelves and horrid old chimney-pieces were removed
+and the ceiling painted white and gold like that in my uncle's saloon,
+and a rich, lively paper, instead of the tapestry, it would really make a
+very fine ballroom."
+
+"Let us have a dance here now," cried Cecilia.  "Come, stand up, Sophy;"
+and the children began to practise a waltz step, tumbling over each
+other, and laughing in full glee.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Evelyn, softly.  She had never before checked the
+children's mirth, and she could not tell why she did so now.
+
+"I suppose the old butler has been entertaining the bailiff here," said
+Caroline, pointing to the remains of the fire.
+
+"And is this the room he chiefly inhabited,--the room that you say they
+show as his?"
+
+"No; that tapestry door to the right leads into a little study where he
+wrote."  So saying, Caroline tried to open the door, but it was locked
+from within.  She then opened the other door, which showed a long
+wainscoted passage, hung with rusty pikes, and a few breastplates of the
+time of the Parliamentary Wars.  "This leads to the main body of the
+House," said Caroline, "from which the room we are now in and the little
+study are completely detached, having, as you know, been the chapel in
+popish times.  I have heard that Sir Kenelm Digby, an ancestral
+connection of the present owner, first converted them into their present
+use, and, in return, built the village church on the other side of the
+park."
+
+Sir Kenelm Digby, the old cavalier philosopher!---a new name of interest
+to consecrate the place!  Evelyn could have lingered all day in the room;
+and perhaps as an excuse for a longer sojourn, hastened to the piano--it
+was open--she ran her fairy fingers over the keys, and the sound from the
+untuned and neglected instrument thrilled wild and spiritlike through the
+melancholy chamber.
+
+"Oh, do sing us something, Evy," cried Cecilia, running up to, and
+drawing a chair to, the instrument.
+
+"Do, Evelyn," said Caroline, languidly; "it will serve to bring one of
+the servants to us, and save us a journey to the offices."
+
+It was just what Evelyn wished.  Some verses, which her mother especially
+loved, verses written by Maltravers upon returning after absence to his
+own home, had rushed into her mind as she had touched the keys.  They
+were appropriate to the place, and had been beautifully set to music.  So
+the children hushed themselves, and nestled at her feet; and after a
+little prelude, keeping the accompaniment under, that the spoiled
+instrument might not mar the sweet words and sweeter voice, she began the
+song.
+
+Meanwhile in the adjoining room, the little study which Caroline had
+spoken of, sat the owner of the house!  He had returned suddenly and
+unexpectedly the previous night.  The old steward was in attendance at
+the moment, full of apologies, congratulations, and gossip; and
+Maltravers, grown a stern and haughty man, was already impatiently
+turning away, when he heard the sudden sound of the children's laughter
+and loud voices in the room beyond.  Maltravers frowned.
+
+"What impertinence is this?" said he in a tone that, though very calm,
+made the steward quake in his shoes.
+
+"I don't know, really, your honour; there be so many grand folks come to
+see the house in the fine weather, that--"
+
+"And you permit your master's house to be a raree-show?  You do well,
+sir."
+
+"If your honour were more amongst us, there might be more discipline
+like," said the steward, stoutly; "but no one in my time has cared so
+little for the old place as those it belongs to."
+
+"Fewer words with me, sir," said Maltravers, haughtily; "and now go and
+inform those people that I am returned, and wish for no guests but those
+I invite myself."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Do you not hear me?  Say that if it so please them, these old ruins are
+my property, and are not to be jobbed out to the insolence of public
+curiosity.  Go, sir."
+
+"But--I beg pardon, your honour--if they be great folks?"
+
+"Great folks!--great!  Ay, there it is.  Why, if they be great folks,
+they have great houses of their own, Mr. Justis."
+
+The steward stared.  "Perhaps, your honour," he put in, deprecatingly,
+"they be Mr. Merton's family: they come very often when the London
+gentlemen are with them."
+
+"Merton!--oh, the cringing parson.  Harkye! one word more with me, sir,
+and you quit my service to-morrow."
+
+Mr. Justis lifted his eyes and hands to heaven; but there was something
+in his master's voice and look which checked reply, and he turned slowly
+to the door--when a voice of such heavenly sweetness was heard without
+that it arrested his own step and made the stern Maltravers start in his
+seat.  He held up his hand to the steward to delay his errand, and
+listened, charmed and spell-bound.  His own words came on his ear,--words
+long unfamiliar to him, and at first but imperfectly remembered; words
+connected with the early and virgin years of poetry and aspiration; words
+that were as the ghosts of thoughts now far too gentle for his altered
+soul.  He bowed down his head, and the dark shade left his brow.
+
+The song ceased.  Maltravers moved with a sigh, and his eyes rested on
+the form of the steward with his hand on the door.
+
+"Shall I give your honour's message?" said Mr. Justis, gravely.
+
+"No; take care for the future; leave me now."
+
+Mr. Justis made one leg, and then, well pleased, took to both.
+
+"Well," thought he, as he departed, "how foreign parts do spoil a
+gentleman! so mild as he was once!  I must botch up the accounts, I
+see,--the squire has grown sharp."
+
+As Evelyn concluded her song, she--whose charm in singing was that she
+sang from the heart--was so touched by the melancholy music of the air
+and words, that her voice faltered, and the last line died inaudibly on
+her lips.
+
+The children sprang up and kissed her.
+
+"Oh," cried Cecilia, "there is the beautiful peacock!"  And there,
+indeed, on the steps without--perhaps attracted by the music--stood the
+picturesque bird.  The children ran out to greet their old favourite, who
+was extremely tame; and presently Cecilia returned.
+
+"Oh, Carry! do see what beautiful horses are coming up the park!"
+
+Caroline, who was a good rider, and fond of horses, and whose curiosity
+was always aroused by things connected with show and station, suffered
+the little girl to draw her into the garden.  Two grooms, each mounted on
+a horse of the pure Arabian breed, and each leading another, swathed and
+bandaged, were riding slowly up the road; and Caroline was so attracted
+by the novel appearance of the animals in a place so deserted that she
+followed the children towards them, to learn who could possibly be their
+enviable owner.  Evelyn, forgotten for the moment, remained alone.  She
+was pleased at being so, and once more turned to the picture which had so
+attracted her before.  The mild eyes fixed on her, with an expression
+that recalled to her mind her own mother.
+
+"And," thought she, as she gazed, "this fair creature did not live to
+know the fame of her son, to rejoice in his success, or to soothe his
+grief.  And he, that son, a disappointed and solitary exile in distant
+lands, while strangers stand within his deserted hall!"
+
+The images she had conjured up moved and absorbed her; and she continued
+to stand before the picture, gazing upward with moistened eyes.  It was a
+beautiful vision as she thus stood, with her delicate bloom, her
+luxuriant hair (for the hat was not yet replaced), her elastic form, so
+full of youth and health and hope,--the living form beside the faded
+canvas of the dead, once youthful, tender, lovely as herself!  Evelyn
+turned away with a sigh; the sigh was re-echoed yet more deeply.  She
+started: the door that led to the study was opened, and in the aperture
+was the figure of a man in the prime of life.  His hair, still luxuriant
+as in his earliest youth, though darkened by the suns of the East, curled
+over a forehead of majestic expanse.  The high and proud features, that
+well became a stature above the ordinary standard; the pale but bronzed
+complexion; the large eyes of deepest blue, shaded by dark brows and
+lashes; and more than all, that expression at once of passion and repose
+which characterizes the old Italian portraits, and seems to denote the
+inscrutable power that experience imparts to intellect, constituted an
+_ensemble_ which, if not faultlessly handsome, was eminently striking,
+and formed at once to interest and command.  It was a face, once seen,
+never to be forgotten; it was a face that had long, half unconsciously,
+haunted Evelyn's young dreams; it was a face she had seen before, though,
+then younger and milder and fairer, it wore a different aspect.
+
+Evelyn stood rooted to the spot, feeling herself blush to her very
+temples,--an enchanting picture of bashful confusion and innocent alarm.
+
+"Do not let me regret my return," said the stranger, approaching after a
+short pause, and with much gentleness in his voice and smile; "and think
+that the owner is doomed to scare away the fair spirits that haunted the
+spot in his absence."
+
+"The owner!" repeated Evelyn, almost inaudibly, and in increased
+embarrassment; "are you then the--the--"
+
+"Yes," courteously interrupted the stranger, seeing her confusion, "my
+name is Maltravers; and I am to blame for not having informed you of my
+sudden return, or for now trespassing on your presence.  But you see my
+excuse;" and he pointed to the instrument.  "You have the magic that
+draws even the serpent from his hole.  But you are not alone?"
+
+"Oh, no! no, indeed!  Miss Merton is with me.  I know not where she is
+gone.  I will seek her."
+
+"Miss Merton!  You are not then one of that family?"
+
+"No, only a guest.  I will find her; she must apologize for us.  We were
+not aware that you were here,--indeed we were not."
+
+"That is a cruel excuse," said Maltravers, smiling at her eagerness: and
+the smile and the look reminded her yet more forcibly of the time when he
+had carried her in his arms and soothed her suffering and praised her
+courage and pressed the kiss almost of a lover on her hand.  At that
+thought she blushed yet more deeply, and yet more eagerly turned to
+escape.
+
+Maltravers did not seek to detain her, but silently followed her steps.
+She had scarcely gained the window, before little Cecilia scampered in,
+crying,--
+
+"Only think!  Mr. Maltravers has come back, and brought such beautiful
+horses!"
+
+Cecilia stopped abruptly, as she caught sight of the stranger; and the
+next moment Caroline herself appeared.  Her worldly experience and quick
+sense saw immediately what had chanced; and she hastened to apologize to
+Maltravers, and congratulate him on his return, with an ease that
+astonished poor Evelyn, and by no means seemed appreciated by Maltravers
+himself.  He replied with brief and haughty courtesy.
+
+"My father," continued Caroline, "will be so glad to hear you are come
+back.  He will hasten to pay you his respects, and apologize for his
+truants.  But I have not formally introduced you to my fellow-offender.
+My dear, let me present to you one whom Fame has already made known to
+you; Mr. Maltravers, Miss Cameron, step-daughter," she added in a lower
+voice, "to the late Lord Vargrave."
+
+At the first part of this introduction Maltravers frowned; at the last he
+forgot all displeasure.
+
+"Is it possible?  I _thought_ I had seen you before, but in a dream.  Ah,
+then we are not quite strangers!"
+
+Evelyn's eye met his, and though she coloured and strove to look grave, a
+half smile brought out the dimples that played round her arch lips.
+
+"But you do not remember me?" added Maltravers.
+
+"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Evelyn, with a sudden impulse; and then checked
+herself.
+
+Caroline came to her friend's relief.
+
+"What is this?  You surprise me; where did you ever see Mr. Maltravers
+before?"
+
+"I can answer that question, Miss Merton.  When Miss Cameron was but a
+child, as high as my little friend here, an accident on the road procured
+me her acquaintance; and the sweetness and fortitude she then displayed
+left an impression on me not worn out even to this day.  And thus we meet
+again," added Maltravers, in a muttered voice, as to himself.  "How
+strange a thing life is!"
+
+"Well," said Miss Merton, "we must intrude on you no more,--you have so
+much to do.  I am so sorry Sir John is not down to welcome you; but I
+hope we shall be good neighbours.  _Au revoir_!"
+
+And, fancying herself most charming, Caroline bowed, smiled, and walked
+off with her train.  Maltravers paused irresolute.  If Evelyn had looked
+back, he would have accompanied them home; but Evelyn did not look
+back,--and he stayed.
+
+Miss Merton rallied her young friend unmercifully, as they walked
+homeward, and she extracted a very brief and imperfect history of the
+adventure that had formed the first acquaintance, and of the interview by
+which it had been renewed.  But Evelyn did not heed her; and the moment
+they arrived at the rectory, she hastened to shut herself in her room,
+and write the account of her adventure to her mother.  How often, in her
+girlish reveries, had she thought of that incident, that stranger!  And
+now, by such a chance, and after so many years, to meet the Unknown by
+his own hearth! and that Unknown to be Maltravers!  It was as if a dream
+had come true.  While she was yet musing--and the letter not yet
+begun--she heard the sound of joy-bells in the distance.  At once she
+divined the cause; it was the welcome of the wanderer to his solitary
+home!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  MAIS en connaissant votre condition naturelle, usez des moyens
+  qui lui sont propres, et ne pretendez pas regner par une autre
+  voie que par celle qui vous fait roi.*--PASCAL.
+
+  * "But in understanding your natural condition, use the means
+    which are proper to it; and pretend not to govern by any other
+    way than by that which constitutes you governor."
+
+IN the heart as in the ocean, the great tides ebb and flow.  The waves
+which had once urged on the spirit of Ernest Maltravers to the rocks and
+shoals of active life had long since receded back upon the calm depths,
+and left the strand bare.  With a melancholy and disappointed mind, he
+had quitted the land of his birth; and new scenes, strange and wild, had
+risen before his wandering gaze.  Wearied with civilization, and sated
+with many of the triumphs for which civilized men drudge and toil, and
+disquiet themselves in vain, he had plunged amongst hordes, scarce
+redeemed from primeval barbarism.  The adventures through which he had
+passed, and in which life itself could only be preserved by wary
+vigilance and ready energies, had forced him, for a while, from the
+indulgence of morbid contemplations.  His heart, indeed, had been left
+inactive; but his intellect and his physical powers had been kept in
+hourly exercise.  He returned to the world of his equals with a mind
+laden with the treasures of a various and vast experience, and with much
+of the same gloomy moral as that which, on emerging from the Catacombs,
+assured the restless speculations of Rasselas of the vanity of human life
+and the folly of moral aspirations.
+
+Ernest Maltravers, never a faultless or completed character, falling
+short in practice of his own capacities, moral and intellectual, from his
+very desire to overpass the limits of the Great and Good, was seemingly
+as far as heretofore from the grand secret of life.  It was not so in
+reality; his mind had acquired what before it wanted,--_hardness_; and we
+are nearer to true virtue and true happiness when we demand too little
+from men than when we exact too much.
+
+Nevertheless, partly from the strange life that had thrown him amongst
+men whom safety itself made it necessary to command despotically, partly
+from the habit of power and disdain of the world, his nature was
+incrusted with a stern imperiousness of manner, often approaching to the
+harsh and morose, though beneath it lurked generosity and benevolence.
+
+Many of his younger feelings, more amiable and complex, had settled into
+one predominant quality, which more or less had always characterized
+him,--Pride!  Self-esteem made inactive, and Ambition made discontented,
+usually engender haughtiness.  In Maltravers this quality, which,
+properly controlled and duly softened, is the essence and life of honour,
+was carried to a vice.  He was perfectly conscious of its excess, but he
+cherished it as a virtue.  Pride had served to console him in sorrow, and
+therefore it was a friend; it had supported him when disgusted with
+fraud, or in resistance to violence, and therefore it was a champion and
+a fortress.  It was a pride of a peculiar sort: it attached itself to no
+one point in especial,--not to talent, knowledge, mental gifts, still
+less to the vulgar commonplaces of birth and fortune; it rather resulted
+from a supreme and wholesale contempt of all other men, and all their
+objects,--of ambition, of glory, of the hard business of life.  His
+favourite virtue was fortitude; it was on this that he now mainly valued
+himself.  He was proud of his struggles against others, prouder still of
+conquests over his own passions.  He looked upon FATE as the arch enemy
+against whose attacks we should ever prepare.  He fancied that against
+fate he had thoroughly schooled himself.  In the arrogance of his heart
+he said, "I can defy the future."  He believed in the boast of the vain
+old sage,--"I am a world to myself!"  In the wild career through which
+his later manhood had passed, it is true that he had not carried his
+philosophy into a rejection of the ordinary world.  The shock occasioned
+by the death of Florence yielded gradually to time and change; and he had
+passed from the deserts of Africa and the East to the brilliant cities of
+Europe.  But neither his heart nor his reason had ever again been
+enslaved by his passions.  Never again had he known the softness of
+affection.  Had he done so, the ice had been thawed, and the fountain had
+flowed once more into the great deeps.  He had returned to England,--he
+scarce knew wherefore, or with what intent, certainly not with any idea
+of entering again upon the occupations of active life; it was, perhaps,
+only the weariness of foreign scenes and unfamiliar tongues, and the
+vague, unsettled desire of change, that brought him back to the
+fatherland.  But he did not allow so unphilosophical a cause to himself:
+and, what was strange, he would not allow one much more amiable, and
+which was, perhaps, the truer cause,--the increasing age and infirmities
+of his old guardian, Cleveland, who prayed him affectionately to return.
+Maltravers did not like to believe that his heart was still so kind.
+Singular form of pride!  No, he rather sought to persuade himself that he
+intended to sell Burleigh, to arrange his affairs finally, and then quit
+forever his native land.  To prove to himself that this was the case, he
+had intended at Dover to hurry at once to Burleigh, and merely write to
+Cleveland that he was returned to England.  But his heart would not
+suffer him to enjoy this cruel luxury of self-mortification, and his
+horses' heads were turned to Richmond when within a stage of London.  He
+had spent two days with the good old man, and those two days had so
+warmed and softened his feelings that he was quite appalled at his own
+dereliction from fixed principles!  However, he went before Cleveland had
+time to discover that he was changed; and the old man had promised to
+visit him shortly.
+
+This, then, was the state of Ernest Maltravers at the age of
+thirty-six,--an age in which frame and mind are in their fullest
+perfection; an age in which men begin most keenly to feel that they are
+citizens.  With all his energies braced and strengthened; with his mind
+stored with profusest gifts; in the vigour of a constitution to which a
+hardy life had imparted a second and fresher youth; so trained by stern
+experience as to redeem with an easy effort all the deficiencies and
+faults which had once resulted from too sensitive an imagination and too
+high a standard for human actions; formed to render to his race the most
+brilliant and durable service, and to secure to himself the happiness
+which results from sobered fancy, a generous heart, and an approving
+conscience,--here was Ernest Maltravers, backed, too, by the appliances
+and gifts of birth and fortune, perversely shutting up genius, life, and
+soul in their own thorny leaves, and refusing to serve the fools and
+rascals who were formed from the same clay, and gifted by the same God.
+Morbid and morose philosophy, begot by a proud spirit on a lonely heart!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  LET such amongst us as are willing to be children again, if it be
+  only for an hour, resign ourselves to the sweet enchantment that
+  steals upon the spirit when it indulges in the memory of early
+  and innocent enjoyment.
+  D. L. RICHARDSON.
+
+AT dinner, Caroline's lively recital of their adventures was received
+with much interest, not only by the Merton family, but by some of the
+neighbouring gentry who shared the rector's hospitality.  The sudden
+return of any proprietor to his old hereditary seat after a prolonged
+absence makes some sensation in a provincial neighbourhood.  In this
+case, where the proprietor was still young, unmarried, celebrated, and
+handsome, the sensation was of course proportionably increased.  Caroline
+and Evelyn were beset by questions, to which the former alone gave any
+distinct reply.  Caroline's account was, on the whole, gracious and
+favourable, and seemed complimentary to all but Evelyn, who thought that
+Caroline was a very indifferent portrait-painter.
+
+It seldom happens that a man is a prophet in his own neighbourhood; but
+Maltravers had been so little in the county, and in his former visit his
+life had been so secluded, that he was regarded as a stranger.  He had
+neither outshone the establishments nor interfered with the sporting of
+his fellow-squires; and on the whole, they made just allowance for his
+habits of distant reserve.  Time, and his retirement from the busy scene,
+long enough to cause him to be missed, not long enough for new favourites
+to supply his place, had greatly served to mellow and consolidate his
+reputation, and his country was proud to claim him.  Thus (though
+Maltravers would not have believed it had an angel told him) he was not
+spoken ill of behind his back: a thousand little anecdotes of his
+personal habits, of his generosity, independence of spirit, and
+eccentricity were told.  Evelyn listened in rapt delight to all; she had
+never passed so pleasant an evening; and she smiled almost gratefully on
+the rector, who was a man that always followed the stream, when he said
+with benign affability, "We must really show our distinguished neighbour
+every attention,--we must be indulgent to his little oddities.  His
+politics are not mine, to be sure; but a man who has a stake in the
+country has a right to his own opinion, that was always my maxim,--thank
+Heaven, I am a very moderate man.  We must draw him amongst us; it will
+be our own fault, I am sure, if he is not quite domesticated at the
+rectory."
+
+"With such attraction,--yes," said the thin curate, timidly bowing to the
+ladies.
+
+"It would be a nice match for Miss Caroline," whispered an old lady;
+Caroline overheard, and pouted her pretty lip.  The whist-tables were now
+set out, the music began, and Maltravers was left in peace.
+
+The next day Mr. Merton rode his pony over to Burleigh.  Maltravers was
+not at home.  He left his card, and a note of friendly respect, begging
+Mr. Maltravers to waive ceremony, and dine with them the next day.
+Somewhat to the surprise of the rector, he found that the active spirit
+of Maltravers was already at work.  The long-deserted grounds were filled
+with labourers; the carpenters were busy at the fences; the house looked
+alive and stirring; the grooms were exercising the horses in the
+park,--all betokened the return of the absentee.  This seemed to denote
+that Maltravers had come to reside; and the rector thought of Caroline,
+and was pleased at the notion.
+
+The next day was Cecilia's birthday,--and birthdays were kept at Merton
+Rectory; the neighbouring children were invited.  They were to dine on
+the lawn, in a large marquee, and to dance in the evening.  The hothouses
+yielded their early strawberries, and the cows, decorated with blue
+ribbons, were to give syllabubs.  The polite Caroline was not greatly
+fascinated by pleasure of this kind; she graciously appeared at dinner,
+kissed the prettiest of the children, helped them to soup, and then,
+having done her duty, retired to her room to write letters.  The children
+were not sorry, for they were a little afraid of the grand Caroline; and
+they laughed much more loudly, and made much more noise, when she was
+gone--and the cake and strawberries appeared.
+
+Evelyn was in her element; she had, as a child, mixed so little with
+children, she had so often yearned for playmates, she was still so
+childlike.  Besides, she was so fond of Cecilia, she had looked forward
+with innocent delight to the day; and a week before had taken the
+carriage to the neighbouring town to return with a carefully concealed
+basket of toys,--dolls, sashes, and picture-books.  But somehow or other,
+she did not feel so childlike as usual that morning; her heart was away
+from the pleasure before her, and her smile was at first languid.  But in
+children's mirth there is something so contagious to those who love
+children; and now, as the party scattered themselves on the grass, and
+Evelyn opened the basket, and bade them with much gravity keep quiet, and
+be good children, she was the happiest of the whole group.  But she knew
+how to give pleasure: and the basket was presented to Cecilia, that the
+little queen of the day might enjoy the luxury of being generous; and to
+prevent jealousy, the notable expedient of a lottery was suggested.
+
+"Then Evy shall be Fortune!" cried Cecilia; "nobody will be sorry to get
+anything from Evy,--and if any one is discontented Evy sha'n't kiss her."
+
+Mrs. Merton, whose motherly heart was completely won by Evelyn's kindness
+to the children, forgot all her husband's lectures, and willingly
+ticketed the prizes, and wrote the numbers of the lots on slips of paper
+carefully folded.  A large old Indian jar was dragged from the
+drawing-room and constituted the fated urn; the tickets were deposited
+therein, and Cecilia was tying the handkerchief round Evelyn's
+eyes,--while Fortune struggled archly not to be as blind as she ought to
+be,--and the children, seated in a circle, were in full joy and
+expectation when there was a sudden pause.  The laughter stopped; so did
+Cissy's little hands.  What could it be?  Evelyn slipped the bandage, and
+her eyes rested on Maltravers!
+
+"Well, really, my dear Miss Cameron," said the rector, who was by the
+side of the intruder, and who, indeed, had just brought him to the spot,
+"I don't know what these little folks will do to you next."
+
+"I ought rather to be their victim," said Maltravers, good-humouredly;
+"the fairies always punish us grown-up mortals for trespassing on their
+revels."
+
+While he spoke, his eyes--those eyes, the most eloquent in the
+world--dwelt on Evelyn (as, to cover her blushes, she took Cecilia in her
+arms, and appeared to attend to nothing else) with a look of such
+admiration and delight as a mortal might well be supposed to cast on some
+beautiful fairy.
+
+Sophy, a very bold child, ran up to him.  "How do, sir?" she lisped,
+putting up her face to be kissed; "how's the pretty peacock?"
+
+This opportune audacity served at once to renew the charm that had been
+broken,--to unite the stranger with the children.  Here was acquaintance
+claimed and allowed in an instant.  The next moment Maltravers was one of
+the circle, on the turf with the rest, as gay, and almost as noisy,--that
+hard, proud man, so disdainful of the trifles of the world!
+
+"But the gentleman must have a prize, too," said Sophy, proud of her tall
+new friend.  "What's your other name; why do you have such a long, hard
+name?"
+
+"Call me Ernest," said Maltravers.
+
+"Why don't we begin?" cried the children.
+
+"Evy, come, be a good child, miss," said Sophy, as Evelyn, vexed and
+ashamed, and half ready to cry, resisted the bandage.
+
+Mr. Merton interposed his authority; but the children clamoured, and
+Evelyn hastily yielded.  It was Fortune's duty to draw the tickets from
+the urn, and give them to each claimant whose name was called; when it
+came to the turn of Maltravers, the bandage did not conceal the blush and
+smile of the enchanting goddess, and the hand of the aspirant thrilled as
+it touched hers.
+
+The children burst into screams of laughter when Cecilia gravely awarded
+to Maltravers the worst prize in the lot,--a blue ribbon,--which Sophy,
+however, greedily insisted on having; but Maltravers would not yield it.
+
+Maltravers remained all day at the rectory, and shared in the ball,--yes,
+he danced with Evelyn--he, Maltravers, who had never been known to dance
+since he was twenty-two!  The ice was fairly broken,--Maltravers was at
+home with the Mertons.  And when he took his solitary walk to his
+solitary house--over the little bridge, and through the shadowy
+wood--astonished, perhaps, with himself, every one of the guests, from
+the oldest to the youngest, pronounced him delightful.  Caroline,
+perhaps, might have been piqued some months ago that he did not dance
+with _her_; but now, her heart--such as it was--felt preoccupied.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  L'ESPRIT de l'homme est plus penetrant que consequent, et embrasse
+  plus qu'il ne peat lier.*--VAUVENARGUES.
+
+  * "The spirit of man is more penetrating than logical, and
+    gathers more than it can garner."
+
+AND now Maltravers was constantly with the Merton family; there was no
+need of excuse for familiarity on his part.  Mr. Merton, charmed to find
+his advances not rejected, thrust intimacy upon him.
+
+One day they spent the afternoon at Burleigh, and Evelyn and Caroline
+finished their survey of the house,--tapestry, and armour, pictures and
+all.  This led to a visit to the Arabian horses.  Caroline observed that
+she was very fond of riding, and went into ecstasies with one of the
+animals,--the one, of course, with the longest tail.  The next day the
+horse was in the stables at the rectory, and a gallant epistle apologized
+for the costly gift.
+
+Mr. Merton demurred, but Caroline always had her own way; and so the
+horse remained (no doubt, in much amazement and disdain) with the
+parson's pony, and the brown carriage horses.  The gift naturally
+conduced to parties on horseback--it was cruel entirely to separate the
+Arab from his friends--and how was Evelyn to be left behind?--Evelyn, who
+had never yet ridden anything more spirited than an old pony!  A
+beautiful little horse belonging to an elderly lady, now growing too
+stout to ride, was to be sold hard by.  Maltravers discovered the
+treasure, and apprised Mr. Merton of it--he was too delicate to affect
+liberality to the rich heiress.  The horse was bought; nothing could go
+quieter; Evelyn was not at all afraid.  They made two or three little
+excursions.  Sometimes only Mr. Merton and Maltravers accompanied the
+young ladies, sometimes the party was more numerous.  Maltravers appeared
+to pay equal attention to Caroline and her friend; still Evelyn's
+inexperience in equestrian matters was an excuse for his being ever by
+her side.  They had a thousand opportunities to converse; and Evelyn now
+felt more at home with him; her gentle gayety, her fanciful yet chastened
+intellect, found a voice.  Maltravers was not slow to discover that
+beneath her simplicity there lurked sense, judgment, and imagination.
+Insensibly his own conversation took a higher flight.  With the freedom
+which his mature years and reputation gave him, he mingled eloquent
+instruction with lighter and more trifling subjects; be directed her
+earnest and docile mind, not only to new fields of written knowledge, but
+to many of the secrets of Nature, subtle or sublime.  He had a wide range
+of scientific as well as literary lore; the stars, the flowers, the
+phenomena of the physical world, afforded themes on which he descanted
+with the fervent love of a poet and the easy knowledge of a sage.
+
+Mr. Merton, observing that little or nothing of sentiment mingled with
+their familiar intercourse, felt perfectly at ease; and knowing that
+Maltravers had been intimate with Lumley, he naturally concluded that he
+was aware of the engagement between Evelyn and his friend.  Meanwhile
+Maltravers appeared unconscious that such a being as Lord Vargrave
+existed.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that the daily presence, the delicate
+flattery of attention from a man like Maltravers, should strongly impress
+the imagination, if not the heart, of a susceptible girl.  Already
+prepossessed in his favour, and wholly unaccustomed to a society which
+combined so many attractions, Evelyn regarded him with unspeakable
+veneration; to the darker shades in his character she was blind,--to her,
+indeed, they did not appear.  True that once or twice in mixed society
+his disdainful and imperious temper broke hastily and harshly forth.  To
+folly, to pretension, to presumption, he showed but slight forbearance.
+The impatient smile, the biting sarcasm, the cold repulse, that might
+gall, yet could scarce be openly resented, betrayed that he was one who
+affected to free himself from the polished restraints of social
+intercourse.  He had once been too scrupulous in not wounding vanity; he
+was now too indifferent to it.  But if sometimes this unamiable trait of
+character, as displayed to others, chilled or startled Evelyn, the
+contrast of his manner towards herself was a flattery too delicious not
+to efface all other recollections.  To her ear his voice always softened
+its tone; to her capacity of mind ever bent as by sympathy, not
+condescension; to her--the young, the timid, the half-informed--to her
+alone he did not disdain to exhibit all the stores of his knowledge, all
+the best and brightest colours of his mind.  She modestly wondered at so
+strange a preference.  Perhaps a sudden and blunt compliment which
+Maltravers once addressed to her may explain it.  One day, when she had
+conversed more freely and more fully than usual, he broke in upon her
+with this abrupt exclamation,--
+
+"Miss Cameron, you must have associated from your childhood with
+beautiful minds.  I see already that from the world, vile as it is, you
+have nothing of contagion to fear.  I have heard you talk on the most
+various matters, on many of which your knowledge is imperfect; but you
+have never uttered one mean idea, or one false sentiment.  Truth seems
+intuitive to you."
+
+It was indeed this singular purity of heart which made to the
+world-wearied man the chief charm in Evelyn Cameron. From this purity
+came, as from the heart of a poet, a thousand new and heaven-taught
+thoughts which had in them a wisdom of their own,--thoughts that often
+brought the stern listener back to youth, and reconciled him with life.
+The wise Maltravers learned more from Evelyn than Evelyn did from
+Maltravers.
+
+There was, however, another trait--deeper than that of temper--in
+Maltravers, and which was, unlike the latter, more manifest to her than
+to others,--his contempt for all the things her young and fresh
+enthusiasm had been taught to prize, the fame that endeared and hallowed
+him to her eyes, the excitement of ambition, and its rewards.  He spoke
+with such bitter disdain of great names and great deeds.  "Children of a
+larger growth they were," said he, one day, in answer to her defence of
+the luminaries of their kind, "allured by baubles as poor as the rattle
+and the doll's house.  How many have been made great, as the word is, by
+their vices!  Paltry craft won command to Themistocles; to escape his
+duns, the profligate Caesar heads an army, and achieves his laurels;
+Brutus, the aristocrat, stabs his patron, that patricians might again
+trample on plebeians, and that posterity might talk of _him_.  The love
+of posthumous fame--what is it but as puerile a passion for notoriety as
+that which made a Frenchman I once knew lay out two thousand pounds in
+sugar-plums?  To be talked of--how poor a desire!  Does it matter whether
+it be by the gossips of this age or the next?  Some men are urged on to
+fame by poverty--that is an excuse for their trouble; but there is no
+more nobleness in the motive than in that which makes yon poor ploughman
+sweat in the eye of Phoebus.  In fact, the larger part of eminent men,
+instead of being inspired by any lofty desire to benefit their species or
+enrich the human mind, have acted or composed, without any definite
+object beyond the satisfying a restless appetite for excitement, or
+indulging the dreams of a selfish glory.  And when nobler aspirations
+have fired them, it has too often been but to wild fanaticism and
+sanguinary crime.  What dupes of glory ever were animated by a deeper
+faith, a higher ambition, than the frantic followers of Mahomet,--taught
+to believe that it was virtue to ravage the earth, and that they sprang
+from the battle-field into paradise?  Religion and liberty, love of
+country, what splendid motives to action!  Lo, the results, when the
+motives are keen, the action once commenced!  Behold the Inquisition, the
+Days of Terror, the Council of Ten, and the Dungeons of Venice!"
+
+Evelyn was scarcely fit to wrestle with these melancholy fallacies; but
+her instinct of truth suggested an answer.
+
+"What would society be if all men thought as you do, and acted up to the
+theory?  No literature, no art, no glory, no patriotism, no virtue, no
+civilization!  You analyze men's motives--how can you be sure you judge
+rightly?  Look to the results,--our benefit, our enlightenment!  If the
+results be great, Ambition is a virtue, no matter what motive awakened
+it.  Is it not so?"
+
+Evelyn spoke blushingly and timidly.  Maltravers, despite his own tenets,
+was delighted with her reply.
+
+"You reason well," said he, with a smile.  "But how are we sure that the
+results are such as you depict them?  Civilization, enlightenment,--they
+are vague terms, hollow sounds. Never fear that the world will reason as
+I do.  Action will never be stagnant while there are such things as gold
+and power.  The vessel will move on--let the galley-slaves have it to
+themselves.  What I have seen of life convinces me that progress is not
+always improvement.  Civilization has evils unknown to the savage state;
+and _vice versa_.  Men in all states seem to have much the same
+proportion of happiness.  We judge others with eyes accustomed to dwell
+on our own circumstances.  I have seen the slave, whom we commiserate,
+enjoy his holiday with a rapture unknown to the grave freeman.  I have
+seen that slave made free, and enriched by the benevolence of his master;
+and he has been gay no more. The masses of men in all countries are much
+the same.  If there are greater comforts in the hardy North, Providence
+bestows a fertile earth and a glorious heaven, and a mind susceptible to
+enjoyment as flowers to light, on the voluptuous indulgence of the
+Italian, or the contented apathy of the Hindoo.  In the mighty
+organization of good and evil, what can we vain individuals effect?  They
+who labour most, how doubtful is their reputation!  Who shall say whether
+Voltaire or Napoleon, Cromwell or Caesar, Walpole or Pitt, has done most
+good or most evil?  It is a question casuists may dispute on.  Some of us
+think that poets have been the delight and the lights of men; another
+school of philosophy has treated them as the corrupters of the
+species,--panderers to the false glory of war, to the effeminacies of
+taste, to the pampering of the passions above the reason.  Nay, even
+those who have effected inventions that change the face of the earth--the
+printing-press, gunpowder, the steam-engine,--men hailed as benefactors
+by the unthinking herd, or the would-be sages,--have introduced ills
+unknown before, adulterating and often counterbalancing the good.  Each
+new improvement in machinery deprives hundreds of food.  Civilization is
+the eternal sacrifice of one generation to the next.  An awful sense of
+the impotence of human agencies has crushed down the sublime aspirations
+for mankind which I once indulged.  For myself, I float on the great
+waters, without pilot or rudder, and trust passively to the winds, that
+are the breath of God."
+
+This conversation left a deep impression upon Evelyn; it inspired her
+with a new interest in one in whom so many noble qualities lay dulled and
+torpid, by the indulgence of a self-sophistry, which, girl as she was,
+she felt wholly unworthy of his powers.  And it was this error in
+Maltravers that, levelling his superiority, brought him nearer to her
+heart.  Ah, if she could restore him to his race!  It was a dangerous
+desire, but it intoxicated and absorbed her.
+
+Oh, how sweetly were those fair evenings spent,--the evenings of happy
+June!  And then, as Maltravers suffered the children to tease him into
+talk about the wonders he had seen in the regions far away, how did the
+soft and social hues of his character unfold themselves!  There is in all
+real genius so much latent playfulness of nature it almost seems as if
+genius never could grow old.  The inscriptions that youth writes upon the
+tablets of an imaginative mind are, indeed, never wholly
+obliterated,--they are as an invisible writing, which gradually becomes
+clear in the light and warmth.  Bring genius familiarly with the young,
+and it is as young as they are.  Evelyn did not yet, therefore, observe
+the disparity of _years_ between herself and Maltravers.  But the
+disparity of knowledge and power served for the present to interdict to
+her that sweet feeling of equality in commune, without which love is
+rarely a very intense affection in women.  It is not so with men.  But by
+degrees she grew more and more familiar with her stern friend; and in
+that familiarity there was perilous fascination to Maltravers.  She could
+laugh him at any moment out of his most moody reveries; contradict with a
+pretty wilfulness his most favourite dogmas; nay, even scold him, with
+bewitching gravity, if he was not always at the command of her wishes--or
+caprice.  At this time it seemed certain that Maltravers would fall in
+love with Evelyn; but it rested on more doubtful probabilities whether
+Evelyn would fall in love with him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+                    CONTRAHE vela,
+  Et te littoribus cymba propinqua vehat.*--SENECA.
+
+  * "Furl your sails, and let the next boat carry you to the shore."
+
+"HAS not Miss Cameron a beautiful countenance?" said Mr. Merton to
+Maltravers, as Evelyn, unconscious of the compliment, sat at a little
+distance, bending down her eyes to Sophy, who was weaving daisy-chains on
+a stool at her knee, and whom she was telling not to talk loud,--for
+Merton had been giving Maltravers some useful information respecting the
+management of his estate; and Evelyn was already interested in all that
+could interest her friend.  She had one excellent thing in woman, had
+Evelyn Cameron: despite her sunny cheerfulness of temper she was _quiet_;
+and she had insensibly acquired, under the roof of her musing and silent
+mother, the habit of never disturbing others.  What a blessed secret is
+that in the intercourse of domestic life!
+
+"Has not Miss Cameron a beautiful countenance?"
+
+Maltravers started at the question,--it was a literal translation of his
+own thought at that moment.  He checked the enthusiasm that rose to his
+lip, and calmly re-echoed the word,--
+
+"Beautiful indeed!"
+
+"And so sweet-tempered and unaffected; she has been admirably brought up.
+I believe Lady Vargrave is a most exemplary woman.  Miss Cameron will,
+indeed, be a treasure to her betrothed husband.  He is to be envied."
+
+"Her betrothed husband!" said Maltravers, turning very pale.
+
+"Yes; Lord Vargrave.  Did you not know that she was engaged to him from
+her childhood?  It was the wish, nay, command, of the late lord, who
+bequeathed her his vast fortune, if not on that condition, at least on
+that understanding.  Did you never hear of this before?"
+
+While Mr. Merton spoke, a sudden recollection returned to Maltravers.  He
+_had_ heard Lumley himself refer to the engagement, but it had been in
+the sick chamber of Florence,--little heeded at the time, and swept from
+his mind by a thousand after-thoughts and scenes.  Mr. Merton
+continued,--
+
+"We expect Lord Vargrave down soon.  He is an ardent lover, I conclude;
+but public life chains him so much to London.  He made an admirable
+speech in the Lords last night; at least, our party appear to think so.
+They are to be married when Miss Cameron attains the age of eighteen."
+
+Accustomed to endurance, and skilled in the proud art of concealing
+emotion, Maltravers betrayed to the eye of Mr. Merton no symptom of
+surprise or dismay at this intelligence.  If the rector had conceived any
+previous suspicion that Maltravers was touched beyond mere admiration for
+beauty, the suspicion would have vanished as he heard his guest coldly
+reply,--
+
+"I trust Lord Vargrave may deserve his happiness.  But, to return to Mr.
+Justis; you corroborate my own opinion of that smooth-spoken gentleman."
+
+The conversation flowed back to business.  At last, Maltravers rose to
+depart.
+
+"Will you not dine with us to-day?" said the hospitable rector.
+
+"Many thanks,--no; I have much business to attend to at home for some
+days to come."
+
+"Kiss Sophy, Mr. Ernest,--Sophy very good girl to-day.  Let the pretty
+butterfly go, because Evy said it was cruel to put it in a card-box; kiss
+Sophy."
+
+Maltravers took the child (whose heart he had completely won) in his
+arms, and kissed her tenderly; then advancing to Evelyn, he held out his
+hand, while his eyes were fixed upon her with an expression of deep and
+mournful interest, which she could not understand.
+
+"God bless you, Miss Cameron," he said, and his lip quivered.
+
+Days passed, and they saw no more of Maltravers.  He excused himself on
+pretence, now of business, now of other engagements, from all the
+invitations of the rector.  Mr. Merton unsuspectingly accepted the
+excuse; for he knew that Maltravers was necessarily much occupied.
+
+His arrival had now spread throughout the country; and such of his equals
+as were still in B-----shire hastened to offer congratulations, and press
+hospitality.  Perhaps it was the desire to make his excuses to Merton
+valid which prompted the master of Burleigh to yield to the other
+invitations that crowded on him.  But this was not all,--Maltravers
+acquired in the neighbourhood the reputation of a man of business.  Mr.
+Justis was abruptly dismissed; with the help of the bailiff Maltravers
+became his own steward.  His parting address to this personage was
+characteristic of the mingled harshness and justice of Maltravers.
+
+"Sir," said he, as they closed their accounts, "I discharge you because
+you are a rascal,--there can be no dispute about that; you have plundered
+your owner, yet you have ground his tenants, and neglected the poor.  My
+villages are filled with paupers, my rent-roll is reduced a fourth; and
+yet, while some of my tenants appear to pay nominal rents (why, you best
+know),--others are screwed up higher than any man's in the country.  You
+are a rogue, Mr. Justis,--your own account-books show it; and if I send
+them to a lawyer, you would have to refund a sum that I could apply very
+advantageously to the rectification of your blunders."
+
+"I hope, sir," said the steward, conscience-stricken and appalled,--"I
+hope you will not ruin me; indeed, indeed, if I was called upon to
+refund, I should go to jail."
+
+"Make yourself easy, sir.  It is just that I should suffer as well as
+you.  My neglect of my own duties tempted you to roguery.  You were
+honest under the vigilant eye of Mr. Cleveland.  Retire with your gains:
+if you are quite hardened, no punishment can touch you; if you are not,
+it is punishment enough to stand there gray-headed, with one foot in the
+grave, and hear yourself called a rogue, and know that you cannot defend
+yourself,--go!"
+
+Maltravers next occupied himself in all the affairs that a mismanaged
+estate brought upon him.  He got rid of some tenants, he made new
+arrangements with others; he called labour into requisition by a variety
+of improvements; he paid minute attention to the poor, not in the
+weakness of careless and indiscriminate charity, by which popularity is
+so cheaply purchased, and independence so easily degraded,--no, his main
+care was to stimulate industry and raise hope.  The ambition and
+emulation that he so vainly denied in himself, he found his most useful
+levers in the humble labourers whose characters he had studied, whose
+condition he sought to make themselves desire to elevate.  Unconsciously
+his whole practice began to refute his theories.  The abuses of the old
+Poor Laws were rife in his neighbourhood; his quick penetration, and
+perhaps his imperious habits of decision, suggested to him many of the
+best provisions of the law now called into operation; but he was too wise
+to be the Philosopher Square of a system.  He did not attempt too much;
+and he recognized one principle, which, as yet, the administrators of the
+new Poor-Laws have not sufficiently discovered.  One main object of the
+new code was, by curbing public charity, to task the activity of
+individual benevolence.  If the proprietor or the clergyman find under
+his own eye isolated instances of severity, oppression, or hardship in a
+general and salutary law, instead of railing against the law, he ought to
+attend to the individual instances; and private benevolence ought to keep
+the balance of the scales even, and be the makeweight wherever there is a
+just deficiency of national charity.* It was this which, in the modified
+and discreet regulations that he sought to establish on his estates,
+Maltravers especially and pointedly attended to.  Age, infirmity,
+temporary distress, unmerited destitution, found him a steady, watchful,
+indefatigable friend.  In these labours, commenced with extraordinary
+promptitude, and the energy of a single purpose and stern mind,
+Maltravers was necessarily brought into contact with the neighbouring
+magistrates and gentry.  He was combating evils and advancing objects in
+which all were interested; and his vigorous sense, and his past
+parliamentary reputation, joined with the respect which in provinces
+always attaches to ancient birth, won unexpected and general favour to
+his views.  At the rectory they heard of him constantly, not only through
+occasional visitors, but through Mr. Merton, who was ever thrown in his
+way; but he continued to keep himself aloof from the house.  Every one
+(Mr. Merton excepted) missed him,--even Caroline, whose able though
+worldly mind could appreciate his conversation; the children mourned for
+their playmate, who was so much more affable than their own
+stiff-neckclothed brothers; and Evelyn was at least more serious and
+thoughtful than she had ever been before, and the talk of others seemed
+to her wearisome, trite, and dull.
+
+  * The object of parochial reform is not that of economy alone;
+  not merely to reduce poor-rates.  The ratepayer ought to remember
+  that the more he wrests from the grip of the sturdy mendicant,
+  the more he ought to bestow on undeserved distress.  Without the
+  mitigations of private virtue, every law that benevolists could
+  make would be harsh.
+
+Was Maltravers happy in his new pursuits?  His state of mind at that time
+it is not easy to read.  His masculine spirit and haughty temper were
+wrestling hard against a feeling that had been fast ripening into
+passion; but at night, in his solitary and cheerless home, a vision, too
+exquisite to indulge, would force itself upon him, till he started from
+the revery, and said to his rebellious heart: "A few more years, and thou
+wilt be still.  What in this brief life is a pang more or less?  Better
+to have nothing to care for, so wilt thou defraud Fate, thy deceitful
+foe!  Be contented that thou art alone!"  Fortunate was it, then, for
+Maltravers, that he was in his native land, not in climes where
+excitement is in the pursuit of pleasure rather than in the exercise of
+duties.  In the hardy air of the liberal England, he was already, though
+unknown to himself, bracing and ennobling his dispositions and desires.
+It is the boast of this island that the slave whose foot touches the soil
+is free.  The boast may be enlarged.  Where so much is left to the
+people, where the life of civilization, not locked up in the tyranny of
+Central Despotism, spreads, vivifying, restless, ardent, through every
+vein of the healthful body, the most distant province, the obscurest
+village, has claims on our exertions, our duties, and forces us into
+energy and citizenship.  The spirit of liberty, that strikes the chain
+from the slave, binds the freeman to his brother.  This is the Religion
+of Freedom.  And hence it is that the stormy struggles of free States
+have been blessed with results of Virtue, of Wisdom, and of Genius by Him
+who bade us love one another,--not only that love in itself is excellent,
+but that from love, which in its widest sense is but the spiritual term
+for liberty, whatever is worthiest of our solemn nature has its birth.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ALICE BY LYTTON, BOOK II ***
+By Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
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