Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 01

LORD VARGRAVE heard the next morning, with secret distaste and displeasure, of Evelyn's intended visit to the Mertons. He could scarcely make any open objection to it; but he di...

THE early morn of early spring--what associations of freshness and hope in that single sentence! And there a little after sunrise--there was Evelyn, fresh and hopeful as the mor...

IT was with the greatest difficulty that Evelyn could at last be persuaded to consent to the separation from her mother; she wept bitterly at the thought. But Lady Vargrave, tho...

LORD VARGRAVE, who had no desire to remain alone with the widow when the guests were gone, arranged his departure for the same day as that fixed for Mrs. Merton's; and as their...

AFTER dinner there was still light enough for the young people to stroll through the garden. Mrs. Merton, who was afraid of the damp, preferred staying within; and she was so qu...

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, reli...

IT was past midnight--hostess and guests had retired to repose--when Lady Vargrave's door opened gently. The lady herself was kneeling at the foot of the bed; the moonlight came...

THE curate was gone, and the lessons suspended; otherwise--as like each to each as sunshine or cloud permitted--day followed day in the calm retreat of Brook-Green,--when, one m...

CAROLINE and Evelyn, as was natural, became great friends. They were not kindred to each other in disposition; but they were thrown together, and friendship thus forced upon bot...

AND the windows were closed in, and night had succeeded to evening, and the little party at the cottage were grouped together. Mrs. Leslie was quietly seated at her tambour-fram...

THAT night Mrs. Leslie sought Lady Vargrave in her own room. As she entered gently she observed that, late as the hour was, Lady Vargrave was stationed by the open window, and s...

FROM that night Lumley found no opportunity for private conversation with Evelyn; she evidently shunned to meet with him alone. She was ever with her mother or Mrs. Leslie or th...

MRS. MERTON and her daughter were already in the middle drawing-room, seated on either side of Mrs. Leslie,--the former a woman of quiet and pleasing exterior, her face still ha...