y, in a tone of
depression.

"Oh, well, of course, having just proposed to her, he must, of course,
behave like a gentleman--and not like a cad. But she can't possibly hold
him to it. You will write to her, mamma--and so shall I."

"We shall make him, I fear, very angry."

"Oliver? Well, there are moments in every family when it is no use
shirking. We have to think of Oliver's career, and what he may do for
his party, and for reform. You think he proposed to her in that walk on
the hill?" said Mrs. Fotheringham, turning to her cousin Alicia.

Alicia woke up from a brown-study of her own. She was dressed with her
usual perfection in a gray cloth, just suggesting the change of season.
Her felt hat with its plume of feathers lay on her lap, and her hair,
slightly loosened by the journey, captured the eye by its abundance and
beauty. The violets on her breast perfumed the room, and the rings upon
her hands flashed just as much as is permitted to an unmarried girl, and
no more. As Mrs. Fotheringham looked at her, she said to herself:
"Another Redfern! Really Alicia is too extravagant!"

On that head no one could have reproached herself. A cheap coat and
skirt, much worn, a hat of no particular color or shape, frayed gloves
and disreputable boots, proclaimed both the parsimony of her father's
will and the independence of her opinions.

"Oh, of course he proposed on the hill," replied Alicia, thoughtfully.
"And you say, Aunt Lucy, that _he_ guessed--and she knew nothing?
Yes!--I was certain he guessed."

"But she knows now," said Lady Lucy; "and, of course, we must all be
very sorry for her."

"Oh, of course!" said Isabel. "But she will soon get over it. You won't
find it will do her any harm. People will make her a heroine."

"I should advise her not to go about with that cousin," said Alicia,
softly.

"The girl who told you?"

"She was an outsider! She told me, evidently, to spite her cousin, who
seemed not to have paid her enough attention, and then wanted me to
swear secrecy."

"Well, if her mother was a sister of Juliet Sparling, you can't expect
much, can you? What a mercy it has all come out so soon! The mess would
have been infinitely greater if the engagement had gone on a
few weeks."

"My dear," said her mother, gravely, "we must not reckon upon Oliver's
yielding to our persuasions."

Isabel smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Oliver condemn himself to the
simple life!--to the forfeiture of half a m