s political views were very mild. Lady
Macleod's were deadly conservative. Kate Vavasor was an aspiring
Radical just now, because her brother was in the same line; but
during the year of the love-passages between George and Alice, George
Vavasor's politics had been as conservative as you please. He did not
become a Radical till he had quarrelled with his grandfather. Now,
indeed, he was possessed of very advanced views,--views with which
Alice felt that she could sympathize. But what would be the use of
sympathizing down in Cambridgeshire? John Grey had, so to speak, no
politics. He had decided views as to the treatment which the Roman
Senate received from Augustus, and had even discussed with Alice the
conduct of the Girondists at the time of Robespierre's triumph; but
for Manchester and its cares he had no apparent solicitude, and had
declared to Alice that he would not accept a seat in the British
House of Commons if it were offered to him free of expense. What
political enthusiasm could she indulge with such a companion down in
Cambridgeshire?

She thought too much of all this,--and was, if I may say,
over-prudent in calculating the chances of her happiness and of
his. For, to give her credit for what was her due, she was quite as
anxious on the latter head as on the former. "I don't care for the
Roman Senate," she would say to herself. "I don't care much for the
Girondists. How am I to talk to him day after day, night after night,
when we shall be alone together?"

No doubt her tour in Switzerland with her cousin had had some effect
in making such thoughts stronger now than they had ever been. She had
not again learned to love her cousin. She was as firmly sure as ever
that she could never love him more. He had insulted her love; and
though she had forgiven him and again enrolled him among her dearest
friends, she could never again feel for him that passion which a
woman means when she acknowledges that she is in love. That, as
regarded her and George Vavasor, was over. But, nevertheless, there
had been a something of romance during those days in Switzerland
which she feared she would regret when she found herself settled
at Nethercoats. She envied Kate. Kate could, as his sister, attach
herself on to George's political career, and obtain from it all that
excitement of life which Alice desired for herself. Alice could not
love her cousin and marry him; but she felt that if she could do so
without impropriety she