Can you forgive her?

antness supplied by the inmates. It was a small house on the south side of the street, squeezed in between two large mansions which seemed to crush it, and by which its fair proportion of

their time?”“My dear aunt, I wouldn’t interfere with their time for worlds.”“Nobody can say of me, I’m sure, that I run after great people or rich people. It does happen that some of the nearest relations I have — indeed I may say the nearest relations — are people of high rank; and I do not see that I’m bound to turn away from my own flesh and blood because of that, particularly when they are always so anxious to keep up the connexion.”“I was only speaking of myself, aunt. It is very different with you. You have known them all your life.”“And how are you to know them if you won’t begin? Lady Midlothian said to me only yesterday that she was glad to hear that you were going to be married so respectably, and then — ”“Upon my word I’m very much obliged to her ladyship. I wonder whether she considered that she married respectably when she took Lord Midlothian?”Now Lady Midlothian had been unfortunate in her marriage, having united herself to a man of bad character, who had used her ill, and from whom she had now been for some years separated. Alice might have spared her allusion to this misfortune when speaking of the countess to the cousin who was so fond of her, but she was angered by the application of that odious word respectable to her own prospects; and perhaps the more angered as she was somewhat inclined to feel that the epithet did suit her own position. Her engagement, she had sometimes told herself, was very respectable, and had as often told herself that it lacked other attractions which it should have possessed. She was not quite pleased with herself in having accepted John Grey — or rather perhaps was not satisfied with herself in having loved him. In her many thoughts on the subject, she always admitted to herself that she had accepted him simply because she loved him — that she had given her quick assent to his quick proposal simply because he had won her heart. But she was sometimes almost angry with herself that she had permitted her heart to be thus easily taken from her, and had rebuked herself for her girlish facility. But the marriage would be at any rate respectable. Mr Grey was a man of high character, of good though moderate means; he was, too, well educated, of good birth, a gentleman, and a man of talent. No one could deny that the marriage would be highly respectable, and her father had been more than satisfied. Why Miss Vavasor herself was not quite satisfied will, I hope, in time make itself appear. In the meanwhile it can be understood that Lady Midlothian’s praise would gall her.“Alice, don’t be uncharitable,” said Lady Macleod severely. “Whatever may have been Lady Midlothian’s misfortunes no one can say that they have resulted from her own fault.”“Yes, they can, aunt, if she married a man whom she knew to be a scapegrace because he was very rich and an earl.”“She was the daughter of a nobleman herself, and only married in her own degree. But I don’t want to discuss that. She meant to be good natured when she mentioned your marriage, and you should take it as it was meant. After all she was only your mother’s second cousin — ”“Dear aunt, I make no claim on her cousinship.”“But she admits the claim, and is quite anxious that you should know her. She has been at the trouble to find out everything about Mr Grey, and told me that nothing could be more satisfactory.”“Upon my word I am very much obliged to her.”Lady Macleod was a woman of much patience, and possessed also of considerable perseverance. For another half-hour she went on expatiating on the advantages which would accrue to Alice as a married woman from an acquaintance with her noble relatives, and endeavouring to persuade her that no better opportunity than the present would present itself. There would be a place in Lady Midlothian’s carriage, as none other of the daughters were going but Lady Jane. Lady Midlothian would take it quite as a compliment, and a concert was not like a ball or any customary party. An unmarried girl might very properly go to a concert under such circumstances as now existed without any special invitation. Lady Macleod ought to have known her adopted niece better. Alice was immoveable. As a matter of course she was immoveable. Lady Macleod had seldom been able to persuade her to anything, and ought to have been well sure that, of all things, she could not have persuaded her to this. Then, at last, they came to another subject, as to which Lady Macleod declared that she had specially come on this special morning, forgetting, probably, that she had already made the same assertion with reference to the concert. But in truth the last assertion was the correct one, and on that other subject she had been hurried on to say more than she meant by the eagerness of the moment. All the morning she had been full of the matter on which she was now about to speak. She had discussed it quite at length with Lady Midlothian — though she was by no means prepared to tell Alice Vavasor that any such discussion had taken place. From the concert, and the effect which Lady Midlothian’s countenance might have upon Mr Grey’s future welfare, she got herself by degrees round to a projected Swiss tour which Alice was about to make. Of this Swiss tour she had heard before, but had not heard who were to be Miss Vavasor’s companions until Lady Midlothian had told her. How it had come to pass that Lady Midlothian had interested herself so much in the concerns of a person whom she did not know, and on whom she in her greatness could not be expected to call, I cannot say; but from some quarter she had learned who were the proposed companions of Alice Vavasor’s tour, and she had told Lady Macleod that she did not at all approve of the arrangement.“And when do you go, Alice?” said Lady Macleod.“Early in July, I believe. It will be very hot, but Kate must be back by the middle of August.” Kate Vavasor was Alice’s first cousin.“Oh! Kate is to go with you?”“Of course she is. I could not go alone, or with no one but George. Indeed it was Kate who made up the party.”“Of course you could not go alone with George,” said Lady Macleod, very grimly. Now George Vavasor was Kate’s brother, and was therefore also first cousin to Alice. He was heir to the old squire down in Westmoreland, with whom Kate lived, their father being dead. Nothing, it would seem, could be more rational than that Alice should go to Switzerland with her cousins; but Lady Macleod was clearly not of this opinion; she looked very grim as she made this allusion to cousin George, and seemed to be preparing herself for a fight.“That is exactly what I say,” answered Alice. “But, indeed, he is simply going as an escort to me and Kate, as we don’t like the r?le of unprotected females. It is very good natured of him, seeing how much his time is taken up.”“I thought he never did anything.”“That’s because you don’t know him, aunt.”“No; certainly I don’t know him.” She did not add that she had no wish to know Mr George Vavasor, but she looked it. “And has your father been told that he is going?”“Of course he has.”“And does — ” Lady Macleod hesitated a little before she went on, and then finished her question with a little spasmodic assumption of courage. “And does Mr Grey know that he is going?”Alice remained silent for a full minute before she answered this question, during which Lady Macleod sat watching her grimly, with her eyes very intent upon her niece’s face. If she supposed such silence to have been in any degree produced by shame in answering the question, she was much mistaken. But it may be doubted whether she understood the character of the girl whom she thought she knew so well, and