Proper Pride, Volume II by B. M. Croker — Read

Three years had made a wonderful change in Alice: she was a very different Alice to what she had been when we first saw her at Malta. Her naturally high spirits and elastic temperament had been almost totally subdued and crushed by the life of retirement and isolation she had led. She felt, although barely twenty-one, as if she had already lived her life: the happiness, gaiety, and domestic sunshine, the common lot of girls of her age, was not for her, an outcast from society, a deserted wife. Sometimes her youth and natural buoyancy would assert themselves, and she would find herself singing and laughing as of old, especially as she played with Maurice, and allowed him to drive her as his willing steed up and down the passages and round the garden; but such were rare occasions.

The mistress of Monkswood was a tall, slight, dignified young lady, who often inspired her aunt with awe by the gravity of her demeanour, and who found it hard to realise that she and the madcap child of former years were one and the same individual. She utterly refused to leave Monkswood, and, with the exception of a flying visit to the Mayhews, had never been away from home for one night. Nor did she encourage people to stay with her, saying she had no inducement to offer, and that it was much too stupid at Monkswood to repay anyone the trouble of coming so far.