ing, in withdrawing her
confidence and affection from the mother who had never once deceived
her, to bestow them on one who had played upon her foolish weakness,
heightened her scarcely-dawning fancy till it became infatuation, and
finally recommended that plan of conduct from which Caroline's whole
soul revolted. Why had she done this? Caroline felt, to bring down shame
upon her head and suffering on her mother. Her parents' conduct changed
towards her--oh! had not hers changed to them? had she not acted from
the first of Annie's arrival in London as if under the influence of some
spell? and now that it was rudely broken, recollections of the past
mingled with and heightened her present sufferings. Her childhood, her
early youth rushed like a torrent on her mind; faulty as they had been,
they were innocent and pure compared with her present self. Then she
had been ever actuated by truth, candour, respectful love, affectionate
confidence towards her parents; now all had been cast aside. If her
mother's words were true, and bitterly she felt they were, that her
conduct to St. Eval had been one continued falsehood, what would her
parents feel when her intercourse with Lord Alphingham was discovered.
Lord Alphingham--she shuddered as his name rose to her lips. Her heart
yearned with passionate intensity towards her mother, to hear her voice
in blessing, to see her beaming smile, and feel her kiss of approbation,
such as at Oakwood she had so often received: she longed in utter
wretchedness for them. That night she was wilfully to cast them off for
ever, flee as a criminal from all she loved; and if she could return
home, confess all, would that confiding love ever be hers again? She
shrunk in trembling terror from her father's sternness, her mother's
look of woe, struggling with severity, the coldness, the displeasure she
would excite--on all sides she beheld but misery; but to fly with Lord
Alphingham, to bind herself for ever with one, whom every passing hour
told her she did not, could not love--oh, all, all, even death itself,
were preferable to that! The words of her brother sounded incessantly in
her ears: "If you value my sister's future peace, let her be withdrawn
from his society." How did she know that those words were wholly without
foundation? the countenance of the Viscount as he had alluded to them
confirmed them to her now awakened eye. Was she about to wed herself to
crime? She remembered the perfect justness