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 is putting it off?”

Alice was silent for a moment, during which Lady Macleod’s face assumed a look of almost tragic horror. Was there something wrong on Mr Grey’s side of which she was altogether unaware? Alice, though for a second or two she had been guilty of a slight playful deceit, was too honest to allow the impression to remain. “No, aunt,” she said; “Mr Grey is not putting it off. It has been left to me to fix the time.”

“And why don’t you fix it?”

“It is such a serious thing! After all it is not more than four months yet since I — I accepted him. I don’t know that there has been any delay.”

“But you might fix the time now, if he wishes it.”

“Well, perhaps I shall, — some day, aunt. I’m going to think about it, and you mustn’t drive me.”

“But you should have some one to advise you, Alice.”

“Ah! that’s just it. People always do seem to think it so terrible that a girl should have her own way in anything. She mustn’t like any one at first; and then, when she does like some one, she must marry him directly she’s bidden. I haven’t much of my own way at present; but you see, when I’m married I shan’t have it at all. You can’t wonder that I shouldn’t be in a hurry.”

“I am not advocating anything like hurry, my dear. But, goodness gracious me! I’ve been here twenty-eight minutes, and that horrid man will impose upon me.