And now, since Mrs. Leslie has been here, I find her conversing with this
comparative stranger so much more confidentially than with me. When I
come in unexpectedly, they cease their conference, as if I were not
worthy to share it; and--and oh, if I could but make you understand that
all I desire is that my mother should love me and know me and trust me--"

"Evelyn," said the curate, coldly, "you love your mother, and justly; a
kinder and a gentler heart than hers does not beat in a human breast.
Her first wish in life is for your happiness and welfare. You ask for
confidence, but why not confide in her; why not believe her actuated by
the best and the tenderest motives; why not leave it to her discretion to
reveal to you any secret grief, if such there be, that preys upon her;
why add to that grief by any selfish indulgence of over-susceptibility in
yourself? My dear pupil, you are yet almost a child; and they who have
sorrowed may well be reluctant to sadden with a melancholy confidence
those to whom sorrow is yet unknown. This much, at least, I may tell
you,--for this much she does not seek to conceal,--that Lady Vargrave was
early inured to trials from which you, more happy, have been saved. She
speaks not to you of her relations, for she has none left on earth. And
after her marriage with your benefactor, Evelyn, perhaps it seemed to her
a matter of principle to banish all vain regret, all remembrance if
possible, of an earlier tie."

"My poor, poor mother! Oh, yes, you are right; forgive me. She yet
mourns, perhaps, my father, whom I never saw, whom I feel, as it were,
tacitly forbid to name,--you did not know him?"

"Him!--whom?"

"My father, my mother's first husband."