"It's hard enough to find honest men anywhere, I suppose."

"Or honest women either. What do you think of Mrs Green wanting to
charge me for an extra week, because she says I didn't give her
notice till Tuesday morning? I won't pay her, and she may stop my
things if she dares. However, it's the last time. I shall never come
up to London again, my dear."

"Oh, aunt, don't say that!"

"But I do say it, my dear. What should an old woman like me do,
trailing up to town every year, merely because it's what people
choose to call the season."

"To see your friends, of course. Age doesn't matter when a person's
health is so good as yours."

"If you knew what I suffer from lumbago,--though I must say coming
to London always does cure that for the time. But as for friends--!
Well, I suppose one has no right to complain when one gets to be as
old as I am; but I declare I believe that those I love best would
sooner be without me than with me."

"Do you mean me, aunt?"

"No, my dear, I don't mean you. Of course my life would have been
very different if you could have consented to remain with me till you
were married. But I didn't mean you. I don't know that I meant any
one. You shouldn't mind what an old woman like me says."

"You're a little melancholy because you're going away."

"No, indeed. I don't know why I stayed the last week. I did say to
Lady Midlothian that I thought I should go on the 20th; and, though I
know that she knew that I really didn't go, she has not once sent to
me since. To be sure they've been out every night; but I thought she
might have asked me to come and lunch. It's so very lonely dining by
myself in lodgings in London."

"And yet you never will come and dine with me."

"No, my dear; no. But we won't talk about that. I've just one word
more to say. Let me see. I've just six minutes to stay. I've made
up my mind that I'll never come up to town again,--except for one
thing."

"And what's that, aunt?" Alice, as she asked the question, well knew
what that one thing was.

"I'll come for your marriage, my dear. I do hope you will not keep me
long waiting."

"Ah! I can't make any promise. There's no knowing when that may be."

"And why should there be no knowing? I always think that when a girl
is once engaged the sooner she's married the better. There may be
reasons for delay on the gentleman's part."

"There very often are, you know,"

"But, Alice, you don't mean to say that Mr Grey