The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete, by
Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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Title: Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Release Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #9774]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger and Dagny

ALICE;

OR,

THE MYSTERIES

By Edward Bulwer Lytton

BOOK I.

"Thee, hid the bowering vales amidst, I call."
--EURIPIDES: _Hel._ I. 1116.

CHAPTER I.

Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place
Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?--LAMB.

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, relieved by the first few flowers and
fresh turf of the reviving spring; and at a distance, through an opening
amongst the trees, the sea, blue and tranquil, bounded the view, and
contrasted the more confined and home-like features of the scene. It was
a spot remote, sequestered, shut out from the business and pleasures of
the world; as such it suited the tastes and character of the owner.

That owner was the younger of the ladies seated by the window. You would
scarcely have guessed, from her appearance, that she was more than seven
or eight and twenty, though she exceeded by four or five years that
critical boundary in the life of beauty. Her form was slight and
delicate in its proportions, nor was her countenance the less lovely
because, from its gentleness and repose (not unmixed with a certain
sadness) the coarse and the gay might have thought it wanting in
expression. For there is a stillness in the aspect of those who have
felt deeply, which deceives the common eye,--as rivers are often alike
tranquil and profound, in proportion as they are remote from the springs
which agitated and swelled the commencement of their course, and by
which their waters are still, though invisibly, supplied.

The elder lady, the guest of her companion, was past seventy; her gray
hair was drawn back from the forehead, and gathered under a