Was it not very possible that she had been invited
that she might meet Lady Midlothian there, and encounter all the
strength of a personal battery from the Countess? Lady Glencora's
letter she would of course answer, but to Lady Midlothian she would
not condescend to make any reply whatever.

About eleven o'clock Lady Macleod came down to her. For half-an-hour
or so Alice said nothing; nor did Lady Macleod ask any question. She
looked inquisitively at Alice, eyeing the letter which was lying by
the side of her niece's workbasket, but she said no word about Mr
Grey or the Countess. At last Alice spoke.

"Aunt," she said, "I have had a letter this morning from your friend,
Lady Midlothian."

"She is my cousin, Alice; and yours as much as mine."

"Your cousin then, aunt. But it is of more moment that she is your
friend. She certainly is not mine, nor can her cousinship afford any
justification for her interfering in my affairs."

"Alice,--from her position--"

"Her position can be nothing to me, aunt. I will not submit to it.
There is her letter, which you can read if you please. After that you
may burn it. I need hardly say that I shall not answer it."

"And what am I to say to her, Alice?"

"Nothing from me, aunt;--from yourself, whatever you please, of
course." Then there was silence between them for a few minutes.
"And I have had another letter, from Lady Glencora, who married Mr
Palliser, and whom I knew in London last spring."

"And has that offended you, too?"

"No, there is no offence in that. She asks me to go and see her at
Matching Priory, her husband's house; but I shall not go."

But at last Alice agreed to pay this visit, and it may be as well
to explain here how she was brought to do so. She wrote to Lady
Glencora, declining, and explaining frankly that she did decline,
because she thought it probable that she might there meet Lady
Midlothian. Lady Midlothian, she said, had interfered very
unwarrantably in her affairs, and she did not wish to make her
acquaintance. To this Lady Glencora replied, post haste, that she had
intended no such horrid treachery as that for Alice; that neither
would Lady Midlothian be there, nor any of that set; by which
Alice knew that Lady Glencora referred specially to her aunt the
Marchioness; that no one would be at Matching who could torment
Alice, either with right or without it, "except so far as I myself
may do so," Lady Glencora said; and then she named an ear