es are everywhere I suppose, only there are none
of them here. Isn't it pretty?"

"Very pretty."

"The Duke did it all. He understands such things thoroughly. Now
to Mr Palliser a dressing-room is a dressing-room, and a bedroom a
bedroom. He cares for nothing being pretty; not even his wife, or he
wouldn't have married me."

"You wouldn't say that if you meant it."

"Well, I don't know. Sometimes when I look at myself, when I simply
am myself, with no making up or grimacing, you know, I think I'm the
ugliest young woman the sun ever shone on. And in ten years' time I
shall be the ugliest old woman. Only think,--my hair is beginning to
get grey, and I'm not twenty-one yet. Look at it;" and she lifted
up the wavy locks just above her ear. "But there's one comfort; he
doesn't care about beauty. How old are you?"

"Over five-and-twenty," said Alice.

"Nonsense;--then I oughtn't to have asked you. I am so sorry."

"That's nonsense at any rate. Why should you think I should be
ashamed of my age?"

"I don't know why, only somehow, people are; and I didn't think you
were so old. Five-and-twenty seems so old to me. It would be nothing
if you were married; only, you see, you won't get married."

"Perhaps I may yet; some day."

"Of course you will. You'll have to give way. You'll find that
they'll get the better of you. Your father will storm at you, and
Lady Macleod will preach at you, and Lady Midlothian will jump upon
you."

"I'm not a bit afraid of Lady Midlothian."

"I know what it is, my dear, to be jumped upon. We talked with such
horror of the French people giving their daughters in marriage, just
as they might sell a house or a field, but we do exactly the same
thing ourselves. When they all come upon you in earnest how are you
to stand against them? How can any girl do it?"

"I think I shall be able."

"To be sure you're older,--and you are not so heavily weighted. But
never mind; I didn't mean to talk about that;--not yet at any rate.
Well, now, my dear, I must go down. The Duchess of St Bungay is here,
and Mr Palliser will be angry if I don't do pretty to her. The Duke
is to be the new President of the Council, or rather, I believe he is
President now. I try to remember it all, but it is so hard when one
doesn't really care two pence how it goes. Not but what I'm very
anxious that Mr Palliser should be Chancellor of the Exchequer. And
now, will you remain here, or will you come down with me, or will