“Not even if they don’t care for them?” asked Alice,

“No:  whatever you have it is your duty to care for and make the best of.”

“Then, what am I to say to Mr. Eildon?”

“Tell him it is absurd; and whatever you say, put it strongly, that there may be no more of it.  Why, he must know that you would be beggars.”

Acting up to her instructions, Alice wrote thus to Mr. Eildon: 

“DEAR MR. EILDON:  Your letter surprised me.  Lady Arthur says it is absurd; besides, I don’t care for you a bit.  I don’t mean that I dislike you, for I don’t dislike any one.  We wonder you could be so foolish, and Lady Arthur says there must be no more of it; and she is right.  I hope you will forget all about this, and believe me to be your true friend,

    “ALICE GARSCUBE.

    “P.S.  Lady Arthur says you haven’t got anything to live on;
    but if you had all the wealth in the world, it wouldn’t make
    any difference.

    “A.  G.”

This note fell into George Eildon’s mind like molten lead dropped on living flesh.  “She is not what I took her to be,” he said to himself, “or she never could have written that, even at Lady Arthur’s suggestion; and Lady Arthur ought to have known better.”

And she certainly ought to have known better; yet he might have found some excuse for Alice if he had allowed himself to think, but he did not:  he only felt, and felt very keenly.

In saying that Mr. Eildon and Miss Garscube were penniless, the remark is not to be taken literally, for he had an income of fifteen hundred pounds, and she had five hundred a year of her own; but in the eyes of people moving in ducal circles matrimony on two thousand pounds seems as improvident a step as that of the Irishman who marries when he has accumulated sixpence appears to ordinary beings.

Mr. Eildon spent six weeks at a shooting-box belonging to his uncle the duke, after which he went to London, where he got a post under government—­a place which was by no means a sinecure, but where there was plenty of work not over-paid.  Before leaving he called for a few minutes at Garscube Hall to say good-bye, and that was all they saw of him.

Alice missed him:  a very good thing, of which she had been as unconscious as she was of the atmosphere, had been withdrawn from her life.  George’s letter had nailed him to her memory:  she thought of him very often, and that is a dangerous thing for a young lady to do if she means to keep herself entirely fancy free.  She wondered if his work was very hard work, and if he was shut in an office all day; she did not think he was made for that; it seemed as unnatural as putting a bird into a cage.  She made some remark of this kind to Lady Arthur, who laughed and said, “Oh, George won’t kill himself with hard work.”  From that time forth Alice was shy of speaking of him to his aunt.  But she had kept his letter, and indulged herself with