Lewis Ross found but a cold welcome at the Tower from its aged mistress.
Why she addressed him with so much reserve, and without even the
familiar harshness of her usual manner, Lewis could not understand, and
it roused his indignation mightily. He, an independent man, a landed
proprietor of influence, a travelled, educated gentleman, to be
over-borne by the caprices and prejudices of a set of old women! His
dignity was hurt, his petulant pride roused. He certainly _was_
conscious of doing simple Alice Aytoun some considerable honor, and did
not fancy there was anything unnatural in his mother thinking that he
might have done better--but to control his liberty--to think that by all
this coldness and discouragement, they could change the current of his
inclination and affections--it was quite too much. Lewis did not feel by
any means inclined to submit to it. He felt, too, that Archibald
Sutherland shrank from his not very delicate questionings, and that,
beyond all doubt, he himself, Lewis Ross, of Merkland, important person
as he was, was decidedly _de trop_ in the Tower.
Even Alice felt it, as she sat in her corner by the window, that
delicate embroidery, which she wished to finish for a cap to Mrs.
Catherine, before she returned home, trembling in her small fingers, and
her heart beating loud and unsteadily. Mrs. Catherine had been so tender
to herself this morning, almost as if she knew--it was so strange that
she should be cold to Lewis. Mrs. Catherine left the room for a moment:
Lewis approached the window, and whispered a petition, that she would
meet him at "the little gate." Alice did not say no. "Immediately,"
whispered Lewis. "I have a great deal to say to you."
Alice laid down her embroidery, and leaving the room, stole tremulously
up stairs, to put on her bonnet and shawl, and steal tremulously down
again, and out to her first tryste. The little gate stood on a shady
by-way, or "loaning," which ran by Oranside through the grounds of
Strathoran and the Tower. Lewis joined her immediately. He had much to
say to her--much that was very pleasant to hear, if it was not very
wise, nor even very connected and relevant, for Lewis, spite of his
boyish pride and self importance, felt truly and deeply, so far as
little Alice was concerned, and had not escaped the ameliorating effect
of that influence, which, according to the gay old epicurean of our
Scottish ballad-writers, "gives one an air, and even improves the
mind."--The youthful couple wandered through the loaning, unconscious in
their own dreamy happiness of the chill wind that swept through its high
bare hedges, till nearly an hour had passed. But Alice suddenly saw,
through the gap in the hedge, Miss Falconer riding quickly to the Tower;
she came, by appointment, to bid Alice good-by, and so that most
pleasant ramble must, of necessity, be terminated. Alice accompanied
Lewis a little further down the lane, lest Marjory's quick eye should
discover him, and then they parted.
She was to leave the Tower in a week; but too pleasantly absorbed to
think even of that, Alice went lightly along the dim loaning, with its
high rustling hedges, and borders of wet herbage. Only one little grief
lay within the glad heart, which began to throb now with deeper
happiness--Anne; why would not Lewis Ross's sister acknowledge, last
night her agitated, shame-faced, simple embrace? It was the only way
which Alice could think of, for intimating to Anne the connexion now
formed between them; and she trembled again, to remember the cold hand
that had been laid upon her head, the look of sharp silent pain, that
had fallen upon Lewis and herself as they stood together, in the first
confidence of their betrothal--Anne, who had always been so kind and
gentle to her! It made Alice uneasy, as she went dreamily forward, until
brighter imaginations came to the rescue, and Anne's neglect sank into
the background, in presence of that more immediate sunshine, the warmer
devotion of Lewis.
Loud gay voices startled her, when she had nearly reached the little
gate, and looking up, she saw a couple of gentlemen approaching, whom
she immediately knew to belong to Lord Gillravidge's not very orderly
household at Strathoran. The aforesaid little gate was the boundary of
Mrs. Catherine's property, so Alice was then in the grounds of
Strathoran--the gentlemen were returning home. Alice proceeded quickly,
eager to pass them, for their loud tone startled her, and she was near
enough to hear a rude compliment aimed at herself, which sent the
womanly blood to her cheek in indignation. They met at last, and
suddenly extending their arms, the strangers barred her passage. Little
Alice's heart beat like a frightened bird. She ran to each side of the
road, only to shrink back again from the rude hands extended towards
her; she looked back to see if there was any chance in flight, she
lifted her simple face imploringly to them, and said; "Pray, let me
pass; pray, gentlemen, let me pass." They laughed at her; poor little
Alice was in despair.
One of the strangers was the "hairy fule," who had visited Mrs.
Catherine. Jacky's expressive description of him: "A man, dressed like a
gentleman," was emphatically correct. The other was a simple, foolish,
fair-haired lad, who, besides some boyish admiration of the pretty girl,
thought this interruption of her progress a pleasant frolic, and good
fun. There was no other way of entering the precincts of the Tower,
except by the gap in the hedge, which the timid Alice did not dare to
venture on, and so she renewed her prayer. "Pray, let me go on; pray,
gentlemen, let me pass."
A crash of the boughs behind her, made Alice turn her head.--Marjory
Falconer, riding-whip in hand, came springing through the gap. "What is
the matter, Alice?" cried Miss Falconer; "who obstructs you? Gentlemen,
be so good as give way."
The gentlemen laughed. The house of Falconer, like the house of Seton in
old days, was of prompt ire, and its sole daughter did it no discredit.
"This is great impertinence," exclaimed Marjory; "pass immediately,
or--" she gave an emphatic flourish of her whip.
A louder laugh than before bade her defiance; in another moment an
unhesitating cut of the ready whip made the younger of the two spring
aside. Alice flew past, and Marjory lingered for an instant to sweep a
few short, sharp lashes over the amazed Fitzherbert, whose strange
grimace of rage sent his young comrade into a fit of laughter, and
earned for Marjory a full forgiveness of his own individual stroke.
"There!" cried Marjory Falconer, as she closed the gate behind her, her
face shining with mingled mirth and anger. "You can boast that you have
had the honor of being horse-whipped by a lady."
Little Alice was running on, in a great tremor, to the Tower.--"What is
the matter?" said her deliverer, laughing, as she overtook her. "What a
trembling, frightened bird you are, little Alice Aytoun. Why, we have
had an adventure: only, to be correct, it should have been Lewis Ross
who delivered you, and not I: is it so? Ah, I am afraid he has been
doing damage here, this same Lewis Ross. It is a great shame--these men
monopolize everything; one cannot even get a nice little girl kept to
oneself."
Alice drew herself up. It was not quite proper that she, the head elect
of an important house like Merkland, with a shadow of matronly dignity
upon her fair brow already, should be spoken of as a little girl. "I was
so glad you came, Miss Falconer. It was very foolish, perhaps; but they
frightened me."
"And you had no whip, even if you had been bold enough to use it," said
Miss Falconer, laughing, as she gathered up the train of her
riding-habit, which had escaped from her hand, and bore sundry marks (no
uncommon thing, however) of its contact with the damp path. "You may be
thankful it was my indecorous, unfeminine self, and not any of the
proprieties. Suppose it had been Jeannie Coulter--why, they would have
caught you both."
"But Miss Coulter is a very nice girl; is she not?" said Alice.
"Oh! exceedingly--as nice a girl as could be; and will be as
good-looking, and proper, and sensible a Mrs. Walter Foreman as it will
be possible to find in the country; as proper, and not quite so
good-looking, and more sensible, than you will be, when you are Mrs.
Lewis Ross; for she has come to years of discretion, you know, and you
are only a little girl."
Alice did not like all this. "I wonder at you, Miss Falconer! I am sure
it is far better to be what you call proper than--" Alice hesitated; "I
mean, no one thinks Mrs. Catherine, and Mrs. Coulter, and Miss Ross
weak, because they are always like what ladies should be."
Miss Falconer laughed. "Well done, my little Mentor; but, for all that,
confess that I was of more service to-day, with my good stout arm, than
if I had been always like what ladies should be. Miss Lumsden is staying
with me at the Craig: I had a bold purpose of getting my poor mother's
old phæton hunted up, and driving her over to see you; but we cannot
compass a vehicle, we Falconers, so I had to give it up. It is just as
well. Miss Lumsden (she's John Lumsden's sister, of Portoran,) would
have been shocked. I shall take your advice, little Miss Aytoun; I shall
abstain from shocking people unnecessarily, after this, when I can help
it."
This was better: the little matron elect was pleased to have her advice
taken, and so ventured further. "And, Miss Falconer, don't be
angry--wouldn't it be better not to speak so? I don't like--I mean Anne
Ross does not like--she says it makes foolish people laugh, and be
impertinent."
Miss Falconer's face became crimson. Miss Falconer drew up her tall,
handsome figure, to its full height, and looked haughty for a moment.
Alice was afraid.
"There! that will do. You will be able to give gentle reproofs,
by-and-by, beautifully: only you must not experiment on me much, you
know, lest I should grow angry. No, no; do not lift up those blue eyes
of yours so pitifully. I am not angry now--but I am sometimes, and I
should not like you to see me so."
The straightforward little Alice looked up in wonder, fancying that the
blunt, strong, unschooled mind beside her, might be in the habit of
giving way to ungovernable and wild fits of passion, such as she had
read of; it was all a mistake. Marjory Falconer was by no means so rude
and unfeminine as she gave herself credit for being, and had bitter
compunctions of outraged delicacy sometimes, after those masculine
speeches, which revenged her womanhood completely. But the little world
of Strathoran did not know that--did not know either how the strong and
healthful spirit of the motherless, ill-educated girl was forcing itself
through a rough process of development, and, like other strong plants,
was rank and wild in its growth, and needed vigorous pruning--pruning
which it would not fail, by-and-by, to manage for itself, with an
unhesitating hand.
So the youthful people of Strathoran laughed, and the elders hung back,
and called her improper and unfeminine; and thus the original evil was
increased by the grievance of which she herself complained; she was left
to the company of men--men, moreover, of that rude, uncultured,
sportsman class, her own superiority over whom she felt bitterly, and
asserted with characteristic vehemence.
Alice Aytoun saw, when her visitor was gone, still more visibly than she
had done in the morning, that Mrs. Catherine was sad.--She could not
help observing the long, wistful looks bestowed upon herself--the
hundred little indulgences which Mrs. Catherine gave her that day, as
she would have given them to a sick child; and Alice wondered. These
steadfast, compassionate looks became painful at last, and there was so
great a chill of gravity and sadness about the stranger, Archibald
Sutherland, that Alice, carried that tremulous happiness of hers--so
much deeper, and yet so much less exuberant than it had been one little
month ago--into her own pretty room.
Bessie sat there sewing, and disconsolate. Johnnie Halflin had protested
vehemently last night that "the Tower wadna be like itsel when she gaed
away." The Falcon's Craig groom had particularly distinguished little
Bessie by his notice. Mr. Foreman's lad from Portoran had bidden her "be
sure and come soon back again," when he shook hands with her. Jacky,
with her eldritch voice, had attempted to sing 'Bessie Bell' in her
honor--and to leave it all! So little Bessie sat sentimental and
despondent in the room, with some vision of breaking hearts, and never
being happy again, while her youthful mistress sat down by the window,
and looked over to Merkland.
Ah! that breadth of hazy air which hovered between the house of Merkland
and Alice Aytoun's chamber window, how full of beautiful shapes it
was--and how instinct with gladness! Mrs. Catherine dined at four--never
later, except on some very great and solemn occasion; and when dinner
was over that day, and the darkness of the long January night had begun,
Mrs. Catherine took her youthful kinswoman by the arm, and led her away
from the dining-room without speaking. They did not go up stairs; they
went away through that dim passage, and stopped at the door of the
little room. Alice was terrified. Mrs. Catherine unlocked the door, drew
the girl in with her, and closed it again in silence. Alice's heart
began to beat loud, in awe and terror. What strange discipline was this?
There was a fire burning brightly; the waning gloaming without gave the
whins, that almost touched the window, a ghostly look. The gray crag
above seemed to be looking in with a pale, withered, inquisitive face.
Mrs. Catherine seated herself on one of the chairs and bade Alice take
the other. The firelight fell warm and bright upon that fine dark
portrait on the opposite wall. There was a lamp upon the table, but it
was not lighted. Alice sat trembling, silent, apprehensive. What could
Mrs. Catherine have to tell her?
"Alison," said Mrs. Catherine, "do you see that picture?"
"Yes," said Alice, timidly.
The light was hovering about it, shooting now a spark of radiance into
the eye, and now moving in a strange, fantastic smile upon the lip.
Alice had heard from some of the visitors at the Tower of Mrs.
Catherine's brother, and knew that this was his portrait.
"Ye ken who it is?--my one brother, Sholto Douglas," said Mrs.
Catherine. "Look at him well. Do you see how strong, and full of health,
and strength, and youth that face is, Alison? Look at him well."
Alice looked again wonderingly at the fine face of Sholto Douglas. To
her, as to Archibald Sutherland, it looked loftily calm and pure,
removed far above all the changeful hopes and fears of this "pleasing,
anxious being."
"Alison," said Mrs. Catherine, "I want to tell you the history of Sholto
Douglas. Sit quiet, and do not tremble, but listen to me."
Alice tried not to tremble--she could scarcely help it. The ghostly
inquisitive crag, behind which she could fancy some malicious elf
watching them--the dark whins pressing close to the window--the dreary
sough of the wind as it swept through the bare trees without, and the
long passages within, moaning so _eerie_ and spirit-like--the calm,
unmoved face looking down from the wall--the comparative gloom of this
sacred and mysterious apartment--she could not repress the involuntary
thrill of fear and wonder.
"Sholto Douglas was my one brother--we were the sole children of our
name," said Mrs. Catherine, her utterance so slow and marked the while,
that it was easy to recognise this as the history of her great sorrow,
"and I cannot tell you how dear we were to one another. You are a bairn,
yourself, of too gentle and quiet a spirit. You cannot know the loves
and griefs of harsher natures.
"We were never separate a day; we were bairns; we grew up into youth; we
passed to manhood and to womanhood hand in hand. In his earliest flush
of strength and manliness, Sholto was arrested on the way. I am a woman
now laden with years, and drawing near to the grave, but, bairn, there
is no earthly motive that would rouse me to any work or labor like the
remembrance of my brother Sholto, that I left lying in foreign earth,
thirty years ago.
"That is not the matter I have to speak of first. When Sholto Douglas
was in the strength of his youthful manhood he was trysted in solemn
betrothal, whereof I myself was a witness, to Isabel Balfour, the mother
of the young man who came to my house last night. She was a gentle,
pleasant, gladsome girl, like your own self, Alison Aytoun. I liked her
well before for her own sake, and I liked her dearly then for Sholto's.
The day was set for the bridal--the whole kindred were stirred to do
them honor--there was nothing in their way, but joy, and blessings, and
prosperity, as we thought in our vain hope. Alison! between them there
was the stern and sore shadow of death, and they knew it not!
"A week before his bridal day, Sholto came home from Edinburgh a
stricken man. I read it in the doctor's face that came to see him first.
I saw it in the blood they took from him, till he was worn and wasted to
a shadow. The burning heat of his inflammation was on him the day that
should have been his bridal day--and when he rose from that bed it was
only to sink into the terrible beauty of decline--with all its dreams of
health, and wild hopes, and sick delusions. Be thankful, bairn, that no
such weird is laid upon you.
"I saw him dying before me day by day. Into my heart there had never
mortal man entered but Sholto, my one brother; and in his prime of
youth, with hopes thick about his brow like the clusters of his hair,
was the Lord parting him from me. I could not hope--when Isabel leant
upon his chair, and looked into his face--his cheek with its bright
color, and his glorious e'en--and smiled and rejoiced, and said he would
be well, I turned from her, my heart within me sick unto death. I knew
he was a doomed man--I saw there was no hope.
"They said at last that the air of some sunnier country would heal him
of his trouble, and I prepared for the journey; anxiously I pleaded with
Isabel to go with us, that he might have the comfort of her presence.
Her kindred would not let her--she thought it not needful herself,
neither did he: they would meet again, he said, so soon in health and
gladness. I turned away from him--my heart was bursting. I kent they
would never meet again--I kent that I took him away to die.
"Alison, I saw the parting of the two. I saw the sick hope in Isabel
Balfour's face, and the wan courage in Sholto's--their hearts misgave
them at that moment. There is a shadow of fear upon all partings, and it
was deepened upon theirs. As for me, my sky could not well be darker--it
was not fear with me, but a deadly knowledge. I kent they would never
meet again.
"And so I went away with him--guarding the young man that had been so
strong and healthful, from every blast of wind, as ye would guard a sick
bairn. I went with him to Italy--to France--syne when he got no
stronger--I took him away to that sunny island in the sea, where so many
are sent to die. His doom was upon him--the light was in his eye more
glorious than ever, the hectic was burning on his cheek. What was the
soft air and the beautiful days, in comparison with the might of death.
He died. I saw him laid in the cold earth of a foreign country, far away
from the grave of his fathers, and turned in my desolation to come back
to my own country, my lane.
"Alison! you do not ken the blackness of darkness, the shadow of that
terrible wing of death. Think of it--think of my desolate journey--think
of my first parting with my one brother. Could ye have borne a woe like
that?"
Alice was weeping--she had forgot herself and Lewis for the moment. Her
gentle heart could not fathom the stern depths of suffering, which still
swelled in Mrs. Catherine's larger spirit, but she recognized the
sovereignty of grief, and answered with her tears:
"And there was the bride to come home to--the desolate bride, that had
been dreaming vain dreams of pleasantness and hope to come. A year
before you would have thought that if ever there were two fated to a
bountiful and gladsome lot, it was Sholto Douglas and his trysted bride.
Now, she was stricken down in her first agony, and he was lying in his
stranger grave.
"Know you, Alison, that there are woes like that wherever there are
living men?--that there is some shadow on every lot, how fair soever,
may be its beginning?--that even the like of you, in your youth and
smiles, have a weird to watch and weep through, every one of you for her
own self, and not another?"
Alice looked up--the tears stealing over her cheeks, the "hysterica
passio" swelling up in its "climbing sorrow" in her tightened breast.
Her blue eyes looked fearfully and anxiously in Mrs. Catherine's face.
This most sad history, Alice felt, was the preface of some personal evil
to herself, some misfortune to Lewis. She could not speak--she only
looked imploringly in sad fear and wonder into the face of her
kinswoman.
"My poor bairn!" said Mrs. Catherine, "you can think how Isabel mourned
in her dark solitude? ye can feel for Isabel?"
Alice started up, all her gay hopes and girlish happiness floating away
before that blast, as such light things will float, and threw herself
unconsciously at Mrs. Catherine's feet, kneeling there in incoherent
grief and terror, and burying her fair head in the lap of her kinswoman:
"What is it--what is it? I will bear it--tell me what it is."
Mrs. Catherine's hand lay upon her fair hair in grave kindness. Mrs.
Catherine bent down. "Alison! wherefore did ye not tell me of this
unhappy tryste, that has been made between Lewis Ross and you?"
Alice could not look up; trembling through all her slight figure, she
waited for the next words.
"My bairn! my poor fatherless bairn! if there was but any weight on my
gray head that could keep off this sore stroke from your's! It is your
appointed weird; ye must be strong, and listen to me. In the fulness of
their joy and hope, it pleased the Lord to sunder for ever, in this
world, the two I have told you of. Alison! there lies as deadly a bar
between Lewis Ross and you; a bar that can never be passed, or lifted
away in this life. You may hear of his welfare and prosperity, and he of
yours; but in this world you must be strangers. It cannot last a day,
this link between you; you cannot go a step further in this perilous
road, Alison!"
One great convulsive throb had shaken the slender frame that leant upon
Mrs. Catherine's knee. There was a moment's pause, and then Alice rose,
her tears dashed away, yet still noiselessly welling out, and a
momentary flush of womanly pride inspiring her girlish figure. "He might
have told me himself," she exclaimed, passionately. "He need not have
been afraid; I--I am not so foolish--I can bear it--my heart will not
break; he had no right to think--he might have told me himself!"
Mrs. Catherine rose, and put her arm round her. The girl turned away,
and endeavored to release herself; endeavoring vainly also to hide the
large hot tears, that, spite of pride and resentment, were falling
passionately again.
"Alison," said Mrs. Catherine, "the youth did not ken himself. I cannot
deny him justice, though I have little wish that you should think of him
more. He did not know himself. It will fall as heavily on him as it does
on you."
Alice endeavored again to free herself, her tears flowing more gently,
and the weight and oppression at once lifted off her youthful heart. So
long as change did not come upon either herself or Lewis, what were
external obstacles to them, in their triumphant hope and affection? But
injured pride, and outraged feelings, made her reject Mrs. Catherine's
offered kindness. Why should she interpose between these two?
"Alison," said Mrs. Catherine, "listen to me. If Lewis's heart were
brimming full with the greatest love that ever was in the heart of
mortal man, and if you yourself were clinging to him as never woman
clung before, yet must ye part: there is no hope--no choice. Before ever
you were born, there was a deadly bar laid between Lewis Ross and you.
It cannot be passed: there is no hand in this world that can lift it
away: it is as unchangeable as death. Bairn, I am speaking to you most
sorrowfully. I would not, for all my land, have laid this burden on your
young head, if there had been either help or choice: there is none. You
must be parted. Alison, look at me."
Alison looked wistfully through her tears at the strongly-marked stern
face, now so strangely moved and melted. She saw the steadfast,
sorrowful, compassionate look, in which there was no hope; and, yielding
to the pressure of the encircling arm, leaned her head upon Mrs.
Catherine's shoulder, and nestled into her breast like a grieved child.
By-and-by, they had returned to their original positions. Mrs. Catherine
seated herself in her chair again, and Alice glided down passively, and
lay like a broken lily, with her head hidden in Mrs. Catherine's lap.
She was stunned and overpowered. The gentle heart lay in a kind of
stupor, a dead and vacant sleep; she hardly felt it beat. The hope, and
shame, and anger, the very wonder and grief, seemed gone; yet in her
crushed apathy, she listened--the faintest word, uttered near, would not
have been lost on the ears so nervously awake to every sound. She was
waiting for further confirmation of the strange fate pronounced upon
her.
"Are you content?" said Mrs. Catherine, lifting the fair head tenderly
in her hand--"are you content to believe me, my poor bairn, and to give
up the gladness of your youth? Speak to me, Alison. I have maybe been
harsher than I should be with your gentle nature, and I am asking you to
make a sore sacrifice. For the sake of your kindly mother, Alice; for
the sake of your honorable and upright brother James: for the memory's
sake of your dead father, whom you never saw, I ask you to give up this
stranger lad. He was nothing to you three months ago. They have
nourished you, and cherished you, all the days of your life. Believe me,
Alison, my bairn, that what I have told you is true; and, for their
sake, give up this Lewis Ross. The bar between you is deadly and
unchangeable: you cannot pass it over, were you to wait a lifetime."
Alice lifted her wan cheek from Mrs. Catherine's knee, and looked up
with sad, beseeching eyes. "What is it? Tell me what it is?"
"It might do you ill, but it could not do you good," said Mrs.
Catherine. "Take my word, Alison, and give me your promise. It is a
thing that cannot change--that nothing in this world can make amends
for. Alison, it is your weird--it has been laid on you, to prove what
strength you have. You must make the sacrifice, hard though it be."
"I have not any strength," murmured poor little Alice, in her plaintive,
complaining voice: "I am not strong, and there is no one with me. Mrs.
Catherine, what is it? Tell me what it is?"
"Bairn," said Mrs. Catherine, "you would need to be strong to listen to
the story, and I have withheld it to spare you. You are but a frail,
young, silly thing, to have such troubles shadowing you; but it may be
most merciful, in the end, to let you ken it all. Listen to me." Mrs.
Catherine paused for a moment, and then resumed: "You have heard tell of
your father, and how he died a violent death? Alison Aytoun, did you
ever hear who it was that killed him?"
Alice shivered, and glanced up in trembling wonder. Mrs. Catherine went
on: "The name of him was Norman Rutherford. He was a young man, as
gallant and as generous as ever breathed mortal breath. Why he was left
to himself in so dreadful a way, I cannot tell. It will never be known
on this earth. Alison Aytoun, are you hearing me? Norman Rutherford,
your father's murderer, was the nearest kindred of Lewis Ross; he was
his brother!"
A long, low cry of pain, involuntary and unconscious, came from Alice
Aytoun's lips. She turned from Mrs. Catherine's lap, and covered her
face with her hands. There was nothing more to say or to hope; and the
mist and film of her first sorrow blinded and stilled the girlish
heart, which beat so gay and high when that dull morning rose.
By-and-by, she had wandered up stairs, and was in her own room alone.
The room was dim, and cheerless, and cold, she thought; and Alice laid
herself down upon her bed, and hid her sad, white face in the pillow,
and silently wept. The girlish light heart sank down under its sudden
burthen, without another struggle. "I am not strong," murmured little
Alice; "and there is no one with me."
There was no one with her. Never before had any misfortune come to her
youthful knowledge, which could not be shared. Now the shrinking,
delicate spirit, half child, half woman, had entered into the very
depths of a woe which must be borne alone. The dull, leaden darkness
gathered round her; the tears flowed over her white cheek in a
continuous stream; and into the dim, disconsolate air the plaintive
young voice sounded sadly, instinctively calling on its mother's name.
Alice was alone!