But this had troubled her not at all. A chance circumstance, the story of which she had told to no one, had given her a short intimacy with this fair child of the gold mines, but she had felt that they two could not live together in habits of much intimacy. She had, when thinking of the young bride, only thought of that wild love episode in the girl’s life. It had been strange to her that she should in one week have listened to the most passionate protestations from her friend of love for one man, and then have been told in the next that another man was to be her friend’s husband! But she reflected that her own career was much the same—only with the interval of some longer time.
But her own career was not the same. Glencora had married Mr. Palliser—had married him without pausing to doubt;—but Alice had gone on doubting till at last she had resolved that she would not marry Mr. Grey. She thought of this much in those days at Cheltenham, and wondered often whether Glencora lived with her husband in the full happiness of conjugal love.
One morning, about three days after Mr. Grey’s visit, there came to her two letters, as to neither of which did she know the writer by the handwriting. Lady Macleod had told her—with some hesitation, indeed, for Lady Macleod was afraid of her—but had told her, nevertheless, more than once, that those noble relatives had heard of the treatment to which Mr. Grey was being subjected, and had expressed their great sorrow—if not dismay or almost anger. Lady Macleod, indeed, had gone as far as she dared, and might have gone further without any sacrifice of truth. Lady Midlothian had said that it would be disgraceful to the family, and Lady Glencora’s aunt, the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, had demanded to be told what it was the girl wanted.
When the letters came Lady Macleod was not present, and I am disposed to think that one of them had been written by concerted arrangement with her. But if so she had not dared to watch the immediate effect of her own projectile. This one was from Lady Midlothian. Of the other Lady Macleod certainly knew nothing, though it also had sprung out of the discussions which had taken place as to Alice’s sins in the Auld Reekie-Midlothian set. This other letter was from Lady Glencora. Alice opened the two, one without reading the other, very slowly. Lady Midlothian’s was the first opened, and then came a spot of anger on Alice’s cheeks as she saw the signature, and caught a word or two as she allowed her eye to glance down the page. Then she opened the other, which was shorter, and when she saw her cousin’s signature, “Glencora Palliser,” she read that letter first—read it twice before she went back to the disagreeable task of perusing Lady Midlothian’s lecture. The reader shall have both the letters, but that from the Countess shall have precedence.
Castle Reekie, N.B.
—Oct. 186‒.My dear Miss Vavasor,
I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally, though I have heard of you very often from our dear mutual friend and relative Lady Macleod, with whom I understand that you are at present on a visit. Your grandmother—by the mother’s side—Lady Flora Macleod, and my mother the Countess of Leith, were half-sisters; and though circumstances since that have prevented our seeing so much of each other as is desirable, I have always remembered the connection, and have ever regarded you as one in whose welfare I am bound by ties of blood to take a warm interest.
“ ‘Since that!’—what does she mean by ‘since that’?” said Alice to herself. “She has never set eyes on me at all. Why does she talk of not having seen as much of me as is desirable?”
I had learned with great gratification that you were going to be married to a most worthy gentleman, Mr. John Grey of Nethercoats, in Cambridgeshire. When I first heard this I made it my business to institute some inquiries, and I was heartily glad to find that your choice had done you so much credit. (If the reader has read Alice’s character as I have meant it should be read, it will thoroughly be understood that this was wormwood to her.) I was informed that Mr. Grey is in every respect a gentleman—that he is a man of most excellent habits, and one to whom any young woman could commit her future happiness with security, that his means are very good for his position, and that there was no possible objection to such a marriage. All this gave great satisfaction to me, in which I was joined by the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, who is connected with you almost as nearly as I am, and who, I can assure you, feels a considerable interest in your welfare. I am staying with her now, and in all that I say, she agrees with me.
You may feel then how dreadfully we were dismayed when we were told
