ersisted, feeling that if I let the
subject drop, it would require afresh effort to resume it
again.

"I don't know."

"Is she likely to be staying at Salisbury?"

"At Salisbury?"

"Yes, there are some people of that name living there. I
called at the house early this morning, and asked for Alice.
She was out, but if I knew that she was staying on there,
nothing would be easier than to go and pay her a visit one
morning from hence, and I should like it of all things."

"Ellen," said Henry, "you cannot go on seeing Alice, or have
anything to do with any of that family. You are quite a child,
and childishly headstrong I well know, but I really must
insist upon this."

"I do not exactly see the right that you have to insist upon
my doing or my not doing anything; but, at least, give me some
good reason for this dictation."

"They are people with whom you cannot with propriety
associate; at your age you can be no judge of such things."

"It was my aunt who sent me to them, in the first instance;
consequently, she can know nothing against Mrs. Tracy; and, as
to Alice, you cannot mean that _she_--unless--"

I stopped short; my heart was beating violently. I felt that
modesty, propriety, dignity, forbade my hinting at my
suspicions; but they were rushing again on my mind with fresh
force; and as I looked at Henry, I felt that my cheeks were
burning, and my eyes flashing.

"No," he said, as if he had not remarked my agitation, or else
that it had calmed his. "No; Alice's character is perfectly
good; but, in visiting her, you would be liable to fall in
with persons whom it would be in every way unpleasant to be
thrown amongst."

I remembered the two men at Salisbury, and felt this might be
true; there was something so plain, and indifferent, too, in
his manner of doing justice to Alice, that it removed my
suspicions; and when he said--

"Well, now, for Heaven's sake, let us leave off talking on a
subject on which it seems we are always destined to quarrel."

I smiled, and made no effort to pursue it farther, but
listened to his account of the society at Brandon.

"Lady Wyndham (he said) is as you can see in looks, the very
reverse of her husband--quite guiltless of his insipid
comeliness. I have never found out anything beyond that; for
she is as stern and as silent as he is communicative, perhaps
on the system of compensation, and from a strict sense of
justice to society."

"And the Miss Farnleys (I sa