The weakness of our
natures occasionally makes us feel a potent charm in "errors of a noble
mind."
Sir Edmund Audley and Alicia Malcolm proved examples of this
observation. The affection of childhood had so gradually ripened into a
warmer sentiment, that neither was conscious of the nature of that
sentiment till after it had attained strength to cast a material
influence on their after lives. The familiarity of near relatives
associating constantly together produced a warm sentiment of affection,
cemented by similarity of pursuits, and enlivened by diversity of
character; while the perfect tranquillity of their lives afforded no
event that could withdraw the veil of ignorance from their eyes.
Could a woman of Lady Audley's discernment, it may be asked, place
two young persons in such a situation, and doubt the consequences? Those
who are no longer young are liable to forget that love is a plant of
early growth, and that the individuals that they have but a short time
before beheld placing their supreme felicity on a rattle and a go-cart
can so soon be actuated by the strongest passions of the human
breast.
Sir Edmund completed his nineteenth year, and Alicia entered her
eighteenth, when this happy state of unconscious security was destroyed
by a circumstance which rent the veil from her eyes, and disclosed his
sentiments in all their energy and warmth.
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