s summer?"

"Certainly not this summer, for the summer will be over when we reach
home."

"This winter? Next spring? Next year?--or in ten years' time?"

"Before the expiration of the ten years, I suppose. Anything more
exact than that I can't say."

"I suppose you like it?" he then said.

"What, being married? You see I've never tried yet."

"The idea of it,--the anticipation, You look forward with
satisfaction to the kind of life you will lead at Nethercoats? Don't
suppose I am saying anything against it, for I have no conception
what sort of a place Nethercoats is. On the whole I don't know that
there is any kind of life better than that of an English country
gentleman in his own place;--that is, if he can keep it up, and not
live as the old squire does, in a state of chronic poverty."

"Mr Grey's place doesn't entitle him to be called a country
gentleman."

"But you like the prospect of it?"

"Oh, George, how you do cross-question one! Of course I like it, or
I shouldn't have accepted it."

"That does not follow. But I quite acknowledge that I have no right
to cross-question you. If I ever had such right on the score of
cousinship, I have lost it on the score of--; but we won't mind that,
will we, Alice?" To this she at first made no answer, but he repeated
the question. "Will we, Alice?"

"Will we what?"

"Recur to the old days."

"Why should we recur to them? They are passed, and as we are again
friends and dear cousins the sting of them is gone."

"Ah, yes! The sting of them is gone. It is for that reason, because
it is so, that we may at last recur to them without danger. If we
regret nothing,--if neither of us has anything to regret, why not
recur to them, and talk of them freely?"

"No, George; that would not do."

"By heavens, no! It would drive me mad; and if I know aught of you,
it would hardly leave you as calm as you are at present."

"As I would wish to be left calm--"

"Would you? Then I suppose I ought to hold my tongue. But, Alice, I
shall never have the power of speaking to you again as I speak now.
Since we have been out together, we have been dear friends; is it not
so?"

"And shall we not always be dear friends?"

"No, certainly not. How will it be possible? Think of it. How can I
really be your friend when you are the mistress of that man's house
in Cambridgeshire?"

"George!"

"I mean nothing disrespectful. I truly beg your pardon if it
has seemed so. Let me say t