"Have you heard from Kate?" George asked.

"Yes, once or twice; she is still at Yarmouth with Aunt Greenow."

"And is going to Norwich, as she says. Kate seems to have made
a league with Aunt Greenow. I, who don't pretend to be very
disinterested in money matters, think that she is quite right. No
doubt Aunt Greenow may marry again, but friends with forty thousand
pounds are always agreeable."

"I don't believe that Kate thinks much of that," said Alice.

"Not so much as she ought, I dare say. Poor Kate is not a rich woman,
or, I fear, likely to become one. She doesn't seem to dream of
getting married, and her own fortune is less than a hundred a year."

"Girls who never dream of getting married are just those who make the
best marriages at last," said Alice.

"Perhaps so, but I wish I was easier about Kate. She is the best
sister a man ever had."

"Indeed she is."

"And I have done nothing for her as yet. I did think, while I was in
that wine business, that I could have done anything I pleased for
her. But my grandfather's obstinacy put me out of that; and now I'm
beginning the world again,--that is, comparatively. I wonder whether
you think I'm wrong in trying to get into Parliament?"

"No; quite right. I admire you for it. It is just what I would do in
your place. You are unmarried, and have a right to run the risk."

"I am so glad to hear you speak like that," said he. He had now
managed to take up that friendly, confidential, almost affectionate
tone of talking which he had so often used when abroad with her, and
which he had failed to assume when first entering the room.

"I have always thought so."

"But you have never said it."

"Haven't I? I thought I had."

"Not heartily like that. I know that people abuse me;--my own people,
my grandfather, and probably your father,--saying that I am reckless
and the rest of it. I do risk everything for my object; but I do not
know that any one can blame me,--unless it be Kate. To whom else do I
owe anything?"

"Kate does not blame you."

"No; she sympathizes with me; she, and she only, unless it be you."
Then he paused for an answer, but she made him none. "She is brave
enough to give me her hearty sympathy. But perhaps for that very
reason I ought to be the more chary in endangering the only support
that she is like to have. What is ninety pounds a year for the
maintenance of a single lady?"

"I hope that Kate will always live with me," said Alice;