o speak, she pulled it
out and held it on the little table before her.

"Alice," she said, "I expect a visitor here to-day."

Alice knew instantly who was the expected visitor. Probably any girl
under such circumstances would have known equally well. "A visitor,
aunt," she said, and managed to hide her knowledge admirably.

"Yes, Alice a visitor. I should have told you before, only I
thought,--I thought I had better not. It is Mr--Mr Grey."

"Indeed, aunt! Is he coming to see you?"

"Well;--he is desirous no doubt of seeing you more especially; but he
has expressed a wish to make my acquaintance, which I cannot, under
the circumstances, think is unnatural. Of course, Alice, he must want
to talk over this affair with your friends."

"I wish I could have spared them," said Alice,--"I wish I could."

"I have brought his letter here, and you can see it if you please.
It is very nicely written, and as far as I am concerned I should not
think of refusing to see him. And now comes the question. What are we
to do with him? Am I to ask him to dinner? I take it for granted that
he will not expect me to offer him a bed, as he knows that I live in
lodgings."

"Oh no, aunt; he certainly will not expect that."

"But ought I to ask him to dinner? I should be most happy to
entertain him, though you know how very scanty my means of doing so
are;--but I really do not know how it might be,--between you and him,
I mean."

"We should not fight, aunt."

"No, I suppose not;--but if you cannot be affectionate in your manner
to him--"

"I will not answer for my manners, aunt; but you may be sure of
this,--that I should be affectionate in my heart. I shall always
regard him as a dearly loved friend; though for many years, no doubt,
I shall be unable to express my friendship."

"That may be all very well, Alice, but it will not be what he will
want. I think upon the whole that I had better not ask him to
dinner."

"Perhaps not, aunt."

"It is a period of the day in which any special constraint among
people is more disagreeable than at any other time, and then at
dinner the servants must see it. I think there might be some
awkwardness if he were to dine here."

"I really think there would," said Alice, anxious to have the subject
dropped.

"I hope he won't think that I am inhospitable. I should be so happy
to do the best I could for him, for I regard him, Alice, quite as
though he were to be your husband. And when anybody a