Adeline Mowbray; or, The Mother and Daughter. Amelia Opie

Adeline, and in an instant she sprung from his embrace; and forgetting how much her violence must surprise, if not alarm and offend, her mother, she rushed out of the room, and did not stop till she had reached her own chamber.

      When there, she was alarmed lest her conduct should have occasioned both pain and resentment to Lady O'Carrol; and it was with trembling reluctance that she obeyed the summons to dinner; but her fears were groundless. The bride had fallen into one of her reveries during Sir Patrick's strange speech, from which she awakened only at the last words of it, viz. 'affectionate children:' and seeing Sir Patrick at her feet, with a very tender expression on his face, and hearing the words 'affectionate children,' she conceived that he was expressing his hopes of their being blest with progeny, and that a selfish feeling of fear at such a prospect had hurried Adeline out of the room. She was therefore disposed to regard her daughter with pity, but not with resentment, when she entered the dinner-room, and Adeline's tranquillity in a degree returned: but when she retired for the night she could not help owning to herself, that that day, her mother's wedding day, had been the most painful of her existence—and she literally sobbed herself to sleep.

      The next morning a new trial awaited her; she had to write a final farewell to Glenmurray. Many letters did she begin, many did she finish, and many did she tear; but recollecting that the longer she delayed sending him one, the longer she kept him in a state of agitating suspense, she resolved to send the last written, even though it appeared to her not quite so strong a transcript of her feelings as the former ones. Whether it was so or not, Glenmurray received it with alternate agony and transport;—with agony because it destroyed every hope of Adeline's being his—and with transport, because every line breathed the purest and yet most ardent attachment, and convinced him that, however long their separation, the love of Adeline would experience no change.

      Many days elapsed before Glenmurray could bear any companion but the letter of Adeline; and during that time she was on the road with the bride and bridegroom to a beautiful seat in Berkshire, called the Pavilion, hired by Sir Patrick, the week before his marriage, of one of his profligate friends. As the road lay through a very fine country, Adeline would have thought the journey a pleasant one, had not the idea of Glenmurray ill and dejected continually haunted her. Sir Patrick appeared to be engrossed by his bride, and she was really wholly wrapt up in him; and at times the beauties of the scenery around had power to engage Adeline's attention: but she immediately recollected how much Glenmurray would have participated in her delight, and the contemplation of the prospect ended in renewed recollections of him.

CHAPTER IX

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      At length they arrived at the place of their destination; and Sir Patrick, warmly embracing his bride, bade her welcome to her new abode; and immediately approaching Adeline, he bestowed on her an embrace no less cordial:—or, to say the truth, so ardent seemed the welcome, even to the innocent Adeline, that she vainly endeavoured to persuade herself that, as her father-in-law, Sir Patrick's tenderness was excusable.

      Spite of her efforts to be cheerful she was angry and suspicious, and had an indistinct feeling of remote danger; which though she could not define even to herself, it was new and painful to her to experience. But as the elastic mind of eighteen soon rebounds from the pressure of sorrow, and forgets in present enjoyment the prospect of evil, Adeline gazed on the elegant apartment she was in with joyful surprise; while, through folding doors on either side of it, she beheld a suite of rooms, all furnished with a degree of tasteful simplicity such as she had never before beheld: and through the windows, which opened on a lawn that sloped to the banks of a rapid river, she saw an amphitheatre of wooded hills, which proved that, how great soever had been the efforts of art to decorate their new habitation, the hand of Nature had done still more to embellish it; and all fear of Sir Patrick was lost in gratitude for his having chosen such a retirement.

      With eager curiosity Adeline hurried from room to room; admired in the western apartments the fine effect of the declining sun shining through rose-coloured window curtains; gazed with delight on the statues and pictures that every where met the eye, and reposed with unsuspecting gaiety on the couches of eider down which were in profusion around. Every thing in the house spoke it to be the temple of Pleasure: but the innocent Adeline and her unobservant mother saw nothing but elegant convenience in an abode in which the disciples of Epicurus might have delighted; and while Æolian harps in the windows, and perfumes of all kinds, added to the enchantment of the scene, the bride only beheld in the choice of the villa a proof of her husband's desire of making her happy; and Adeline sighed for virtuous love and Glenmurray, as all that was wanting to complete her fascination.

      Sir Patrick, meanwhile, was not blind to the impressions made on Adeline by the beauty of the spot which he had chosen, though he was far from suspecting the companion she had pictured to herself as most fitted to enjoy and embellish it; and pleased because she was pleased, and delighted to be regarded by her with such unusual looks of complacency, he gave himself up to his natural vivacity; and Adeline passed a merry, if not a happy, evening with the bride and bridegroom.

      But the next morning she arose with the painful conviction as fresh as ever on her mind, that day would succeed to day; and yet she should not behold Glenmurray: and that day would succeed to day, and still should she see O'Carrol, still be exposed to his noisy mirth, to his odious familiarities, which, though she taught herself to believe they proceeded merely from the customs of his country, and the nearness of their relationship, it was to her most painful to endure.

      Her only resource, therefore, from unpleasant thoughts was reading; and she eagerly opened the cases of books in the library, which were unlocked. But, on taking down some of the books, she was disappointed to find none of the kind to which she had been accustomed. Mrs. Mowbray's peculiar taste had led her, as we have before observed, to the perusal of nothing but political tracts, systems of philosophy, and Scuderi's and other romances. Scarcely had the works of our best poets found their way to her library; and novels, plays, and works of a lighter kind she was never in the habit of reading herself, and consequently had not put in the hands of her daughter. Adeline had, therefore, read Rousseau's Contrat Social, but not his Julie; Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix, but not his Lettres Persanes; and had glowed with republican ardour over the scenes of Voltaire's Brutus, but had never had her mind polluted by the pages of his romances.

      Different had been the circumstances, and consequently the practice, of the owner of Sir Patrick's new abode. Of all Rousseau's works, he had in his library only the New Heloise and his Confessions; of Montesquieu, none but the glowing letters above-mentioned; and while Voltaire's chaste and moral tragedies were excluded, his profligate tales attracted the eye by the peculiar elegance of their binding, while dangerous French novels of all descriptions met the view under the downy pillows of the inviting sofas around, calculated to inflame the fancy and corrupt the morals.

      But Adeline, unprepared by any reading of the kind to receive and relish the poison contained in them, turned with disgust from pages so uncongenial to her feelings; nor did her eye dwell delighted on any of the stores which the shelves contained.

      Disappointment in her hopes of finding amusement in reading, Adeline had recourse to walking; and none of the beautiful scenes around remained long unexplored by her. In her rambles she but too frequently saw scenes of poverty and distress, which ill contrasted with the beauty of the house which she inhabited; scenes, which even a small portion of the money expended there in useless decoration would have entirely alleviated: and they were scenes, too, which Adeline had been accustomed to relieve. The extreme of poverty in the cottage did not disgrace, on the Mowbray estate, the well-furnished mansion-house; but Adeline, as we have observed before, was allowed to draw on her mother for money sufficient to prevent industrious labour from knowing the distress of want.

      'And why should I not draw on her here for money for the same purposes?' cried Adeline to herself, as she beheld one spectacle of peculiar hardships.—'Surely my mother is not dependent on her husband? and even if she were, Sir Patrick has not a hard heart, and will not refuse my prayer': and therefore, promising the sufferers instant relief, she