So did I once say, Alice.

But years of heart-aching misery told how sadly I was mistaken!" The feelings of Alice were touched by this allusion.

She had never before dreamed that her uncle, who died while she was but a little girl, had been a drunkard.

Still, nothing that her aunt said caused her to entertain even a momentary doubt of Edward Lee.

She felt that he had too much of the power of principle in his character ever to be carried away by the vice of intemperance.
Edward Lee had offered himself in marriage to Alice Liston, and it was on the occasion of her mentioning this to her aunt that the conversation just riven occurred.