llisers terrible to the imagination, because of
their rank and wealth. She was a little afraid of the Pallisers, but
of Mr Grey she was very much afraid. And Alice also was not at her
ease. She would fain have prevented so very quick a marriage had she
not felt that now,--after all the trouble that she had caused,--there
was nothing left for her but to do as others wished. When a day
had been named she had hardly dared to demur, and had allowed Lady
Glencora to settle everything as she had wished. But it was not
only the suddenness of her marriage which dismayed her. Its nature
and attributes were terrible to her. Both Lady Midlothian and the
Marchioness of Auld Reekie were coming. When this was told to her by
letter she had no means of escape. "Lady Macleod is right in nearly
all that she says," Lady Glencora had written to her. "At any rate,
you needn't be such a fool as to run away from your cousins, simply
because they have handles to their names. You must take the thing as
it comes." Lady Glencora, moreover, had settled for her the list of
bridesmaids. Alice had made a petition that she might be allowed to
go through the ceremony with only one,--with none but Kate to back
her. But she ought to have known that when she consented to be
married at Matching,--and indeed she had had very little power of
resisting that proposition,--all such questions would be decided for
her. Two daughters therefore of Lady Midlothian were to act, Lady
Jane and Lady Mary, and the one daughter of the Marchioness, who was
also a Lady Jane, and there were to be two Miss Howards down from
London,--girls who were known both to Alice and to Lady Glencora,
and who were in some distant way connected with them both. A great
attempt was made to induce the two Miss Pallisers to join the bevy,
but they had frankly pleaded their age. "No woman should stand up as
a bridesmaid," said the strong-minded Sophy, "who doesn't mean to get
married if she can. Now I don't mean to get married, and I won't put
myself among the young people." Lady Glencora was therefore obliged
to submit to do the work with only six. But she swore that they
should be very smart. She was to give all the dresses, and Mr
Palliser was to give a brooch and an armlet to each. "She is the only
person in the world I want to pet, except yourself," Lady Glencora
had said to her husband, and he had answered by giving her _carte
blanche_ as regards expense.

All this was very terrible to K