o to Ramsgate for a fortnight, but he looks so
wretched when he makes the offer, that I shall not have
the heart to hold him to it. Lady Macleod very much wants
me to go to Cheltenham. I very much want not to go, simply
because I can never agree with her about anything; but
it will probably end in my going there for a week or two.
Over and beyond that, I have no prospects before Christmas
which are not purely domestic. There is a project that we
shall all eat our Christmas dinner at Vavasor Hall,--of
course not including George,--but this project is quite
in the clouds, and, as far as I am concerned, will remain
there.

Dear John, let me hear that this letter does not make you
unhappy.

Most affectionately yours,

ALICE VAVASOR.

At Nethercoats, the post was brought in at breakfast-time, and Mr
Grey was sitting with his tea and eggs before him, when he read
Alice's letter. He read it twice before he began to think what he
would do in regard to it, and then referred to one or two others
which he had received from Switzerland,--reading them also very
carefully. After that, he took up the slouch hat which he had been
wearing in the garden before he was called to his breakfast, and,
with the letters in his hand, sauntered down among the shrubs and
lawns.

He knew, he thought he knew, that there was more in Alice's mind than
a mere wish for delay. There was more in it than that hesitation to
take at once a step which she really desired to take, if not now,
then after some short interval. He felt that she was unhappy, and
unhappy because she distrusted the results of her marriage; but it
never for a moment occurred to him that, therefore, the engagement
between them should be broken. In the first place he loved her too
well to allow of his admitting such an idea without terrible sorrow
to himself. He was a constant, firm man, somewhat reserved, and
unwilling to make new acquaintances, and, therefore, specially
unwilling to break away from those which he had made. Undoubtedly,
had he satisfied himself that Alice's happiness demanded such a
sacrifice of himself, he would have made it, and made it without a
word of complaint. The blow would not have prostrated him, but the
bruise would have remained on his heart, indelible, not to be healed
but by death. He would have submitted, and no man would have seen
that he had been injured. But it did not once occur to him that such