e other, very
slowly. Lady Midlothian's was the first opened, and then came a spot
of anger on Alice's cheeks as she saw the signature, and caught a
word or two as she allowed her eye to glance down the page. Then she
opened the other, which was shorter, and when she saw her cousin's
signature, "Glencora Palliser," she read that letter first,--read it
twice before she went back to the disagreeable task of perusing Lady
Midlothian's lecture. The reader shall have both the letters, but
that from the Countess shall have precedence.

Castle Reekie, N.B.
-- Oct. 186--.

MY DEAR MISS VAVASOR,

I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally, though
I have heard of you very often from our dear mutual friend
and relative Lady Macleod, with whom I understand that
you are at present on a visit. Your grandmother,--by
the mother's side,--Lady Flora Macleod, and my mother
the Countess of Leith, were half-sisters; and though
circumstances since that have prevented our seeing so much
of each other as is desirable, I have always remembered
the connection, and have ever regarded you as one in
whose welfare I am bound by ties of blood to take a warm
interest.

"'Since that!'--what does she mean by 'since that'?" said Alice to
herself. "She has never set eyes on me at all. Why does she talk of
not having seen as much of me as is desirable?"

I had learned with great gratification that you were going
to be married to a most worthy gentleman, Mr John Grey of
Nethercoats, in Cambridgeshire. When I first heard this I
made it my business to institute some inquiries, and I was
heartily glad to find that your choice had done you so
much credit. [If the reader has read Alice's character
as I have meant it should be read, it will thoroughly be
understood that this was wormwood to her.] I was informed
that Mr Grey is in every respect a gentleman,--that he is
a man of most excellent habits, and one to whom any young
woman could commit her future happiness with security,
that his means are very good for his position, and that
there was no possible objection to such a marriage. All
this gave great satisfaction to me, in which I was joined
by the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, who is connected with
you almost as nearly as I am, and who, I can assure you,
feels a considerable interest in your welfare. I am
staying with her now, and in all that