Arrived
here, there were circumstances that chanced to make his talents and
habits of business available to this Mr. Eldredge, a man ignorant and
indolent, unknowing how to make the best of the property that was in his
hands. By degrees, he took the estate into his management, acquiring
necessarily a preponderating influence over such a man."
"And you," said Middleton. "Have you been all along in England? For you
must have been little more than an infant at the time."
"A mere infant," said Alice, "and I remained in our own country under the
care of a relative who left me much to my own keeping; much to the
influences of that wild culture which the freedom of our country gives to
its youth. It is only two years that I have been in England."
"This, then," said Middleton thoughtfully, "accounts for much that has
seemed so strange in the events through which we have passed; for the
knowledge of my identity and my half-defined purpose which has always
glided before me, and thrown so many strange shapes of difficulty in my
path. But whence,--whence came that malevolence which your father's
conduct has so unmistakably shown? I had done him no injury, though I had
suffered much."
"I have often thought," replied Alice, "that my father, though retaining
a preternatural strength and acuteness of intellect, was really not
altogether sane. And, besides, he had made it his business to keep this
estate, and all the complicated advantages of the representation of this
old family, secure to the person who was deemed to have inherited them.
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