h way we go."

"That's the truth," said his wife. "It does matter very little."

They got on to Baden,--with very little delay at Strasbourg, and
found half an hotel prepared for their reception. Here the carriage
was brought into use for the first time, and the mistress of the
carriage talked of sending home for Dandy and Flirt. Mr Palliser,
when he heard the proposition, calmly assured his wife that the
horses would not bear the journey. "They would be so out of
condition," he said, "as not to be worth anything for two or three
months."

"I only meant to ask for them if they could come in a balloon," said
Lady Glencora.

This angered Mr Palliser, who had really, for a few minutes, thought
of pacifying his wife by sending for the horses.

"Alice," she asked, one morning, "how many eggs are eaten in Baden
every morning before ten o'clock?"

Mr Palliser, who at the moment was in the act of eating one, threw
down his spoon, and pushed his plate from him.

"What's the matter, Plantagenet?" she asked.

"The matter!" he said. "But never mind; I am a fool to care for it."

"I declare I didn't know that I had done anything wrong," said Lady
Glencora. "Alice, do you understand what it is?"

Alice said that she did understand very well.

"Of course she understands," said Mr Palliser. "How can she help
it? And, indeed, Miss Vavasor, I am more unhappy than I can express
myself, to think that your comfort should be disturbed in this way."

"Upon my word I think Alice is doing very well," said Lady Glencora.
"What is there to hurt her comfort? Nobody scolds her. Nobody tells
her that she is a fool. She never jokes, or does anything wicked,
and, of course, she isn't punished."

Mr Palliser, as he wandered that day alone through the gambling-rooms
at the great Assembly House, thought that, after all, it might have
been better for him to have remained in London, to have become
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to have run all risks.

"I wonder whether it would be any harm if I were to put a few pieces
of money on the table, just once?" Lady Glencora said to her cousin,
on the evening of the same day, in one of those gambling salons.
There had been some music on that evening in one side of the
building, and the Pallisers had gone to the rooms. But as neither
of the two ladies would dance, they had strayed away into the other
apartments.

"The greatest harm in the world!" said Alice; "and what on earth
could you gain b