ou should not
question me now."

"And John Grey?"

"There is nothing different in regard to him."

"I'll be shot if I can understand you. George, you know, has had two
thousand pounds of your money,--of yours or somebody else's. Well,
we can't talk about it now, as I must be off. Thinking as I do
of George, I'm glad of it,--that's all." Then he went, and Alice
was left alone, to comfort herself as best she might by her own
reflections.

George Vavasor had received the message on the day previous to that
on which Alice's letter had reached her, but it had not come to him
till late in the day. He might have gone down by the mail train of
that night, but there were one or two persons, his own attorney
especially, whom he wished to see before the reading of his
grandfather's will. He remained in town, therefore, on the following
day, and went down by the same train as that which took his uncle.
Walking along the platform, looking for a seat, he peered into a
carriage and met his uncle's eye. The two saw each other, but did not
speak, and George passed on to another carriage. On the following
morning, before the break of day, they met again in the refreshment
room, at the station at Lancaster. "So my father has gone, George,"
said the uncle, speaking to the nephew. They must go to the same
house, and Mr Vavasor felt that it would be better that they should
be on speaking terms when they reached it. "Yes," said George; "he
has gone at last. I wonder what we shall find to have been his latest
act of injustice." The reader will remember that he had received
Kate's first letter, in which she had told him of the Squire's
altered will. John Vavasor turned away disgusted. His finer feelings
were perhaps not very strong, but he had no thoughts or hopes in
reference to the matter which were mean. He expected nothing himself,
and did not begrudge his nephew the inheritance. At this moment he
was thinking of the old Squire as a father who had ever been kind
to him. It might be natural that George should have no such old
affection at his heart, but it was unnatural that he should express
himself as he had done at such a moment.

The uncle turned away, but said nothing. George followed him with
a little proposition of his own. "We shan't get any conveyance at
Shap," he said. "Hadn't we better go over in a chaise from Kendal?"
To this the uncle assented, and so they finished their journey
together. George smoked all the time that