They had not yet, however,
reached either Alice Goodwin or her parents. In the meantime the
feelings of the two families were once more suspended in a kind of
neutral opposition, each awaiting the other to make the first advance.
Poor Alice, however, appeared rather declining in health and spirits,
for, notwithstanding her firm and generous defence of Charles Lindsay,
his brother, to a certain extent, succeeded in shaking her confidence
in his attachment. Her parents; frequently asked her the cause of her
apparent melancholy, but she only gave them evasive replies, and stated
that she had not felt herself very well since Henry Woodward's last
interview with her.
They now urged her to take exercise--against which, indeed, she always
had a constitutional repugnance--and not to sit so much in her own room
as she did; and in order to comply with their wishes in this respect,
she forced herself to walk a couple of hours each day in the lawn, where
she generally read a book, for the purpose, if possible, of overcoming
her habitual melancholy. It was upon one of these occasions that she saw
the fortune-teller, Caterine Collins, approach her, and as her spirits
were unusually depressed for the moment, she felt no inclination to
enter into any conversation with her.
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