One of those visions ghastly and wild,
That makes her shrink like a frightened child?
“For a while she stood as a bird is said
To meet the gaze of the serpent dread,
Pale and still for a time she stood
In the midst of that woodland solitude.”
Alma grew up as beautiful as one of Raphael’s picture angels; but her beauty was of a directly opposite style to that of her handsome mother. Alma resembled the patrician women of her father’s family. Her form was of fairy-like proportions, small, slender, delicate, yet well-rounded and very graceful. Her features were of the purest Grecian type, her complexion was exquisitely fair, with the faintest rose-tint flushing cheeks and lips. Her hair was of a pale gold color; her eyebrows and eyelashes, of a darker hue, shaded deep blue eyes full of pensive thought. Hers was a beauty that might have gladdened a family circle and adorned society. But alas for Alma! Her young life passed in a worse than conventual seclusion.
Scarcely any form of existence in this world could be so lonely and monotonous as that of this fair girl at Edenlawn—Edenlawn, a paradise to look at, a purgatory to live in!
After the departure of her governess, Alma was literally solitary. Her mother, in the blind selfishness of a cherished grief, dwelt apart in her own private suite of rooms, which she never left except at the call of charity. Alma had neither brother, sister, friend, nor neighbor; she was utterly companionless, and her life, therefore, more lonely than perhaps that of any other young creature in this world.
The children of the poorest parents have companions among their equals; the inmates of orphan asylums are herded together in great numbers; the cloistered nuns form large communities among themselves; even the convict prisoners work together in great gangs. In a word, the most wretched in this world were, in many respects, happier than Alma Elverton, the young and beautiful heiress-apparent of Edenlawn, Torg Castle, and the Barony of Elverton; for they at least enjoyed human sympathy and companionship, while she had no friend—not one—not a single creature of her own kind to speak with.