ad cost her was the firm conviction that it would inflict
upon him a deep and lasting sorrow.

Lady Audley, convinced that moderate measures would be most likely to
ensure a continuation of Alicia's obedience, expressed herself grieved
at the necessity of parting with her, and pleased that she should have
the good sense to perceive the propriety of such a separation.

Sir Duncan Malcolm, the grandfather of Alicia, had, in the few
communications that had passed between Lady Audley and him, always
expressed a wish to see his granddaughter before he died. Her ladyship's
antipathy to Scotland was such that she would have deemed it absolute
contamination for her niece to have entered the country; and she had
therefore always eluded the request.

It was now, of all plans, the most eligible; and she graciously offered
to convey her niece as far as Edinburgh. The journey was immediately
settled; and before Alicia left her aunt's presence a promise was
exacted with unfeeling tenacity, and given with melancholy firmness,
never to unite herself to Sir Edmund unsanctioned by his mother.

Alas! how imperfect is human wisdom! Even in seeking to do right how
many are the errors we commit! Alicia judged wrong in thus sacrificing
the happiness of Sir Edmund to the pride and injustice of his mother;
but her error was that of a noble, self-denying spirit, entitled to
respect, even though it cannot claim approbation. The honourable open
conduct of her niece had so far gained upon Lady Audley that she did not
object to her writing to Sir Edmund,

"DEAR SIR EDMUND--A painful line of conduct is pointed out to me by
duty; yet of all the regrets I feel not one is so poignant as the
consciousness of that which you will feel at learning that I have
forever resigned the claims you so lately gave me to your heart and
hand. It was not weakness--it could not be inconstancy--that produced
the painful sacrifice of a distinction still more gratifying to my heart
than flattering to my pride.

"Need I remind you that to your mother I owe every benefit in life?
Nothing can release me from the tribute of gratitude which would be ill
repaid by braving her authority and despising her will. Should I give
her reason to regret the hour she received me under her roof, to repent
of every benefit she has hitherto bestowed on me; should I draw down a
mother's displeasure, what reasonable hopes could we entertain of solid
peace through life? I am not in a situa