you
go to your own room, and I'll call for you when I go down to dinner?
We dine at eight."

Alice decided that she would stay in her own room till dinner time,
and was taken there by Lady Glencora. She found her maid unpacking
her clothes, and for a while employed herself in assisting at the
work; but that was soon done, and then she was left alone. "I shall
feel so strange, ma'am, among all those people down-stairs," said the
girl. "They all seem to look at me as though they didn't know who I
was."

"You'll get over that soon, Jane."

"I suppose I shall; but you see, they're all like knowing each other,
miss."

Alice, when she sat down alone, felt herself to be very much in the
same condition as her maid. What would the Duchess of St Bungay or Mr
Jeffrey Palliser,--who himself might live to be a duke if things went
well for him,--care for her? As to Mr Palliser, the master of the
house, it was already evident to her that he would not put himself
out of his way for her. Had she not done wrong to come there? If it
were possible for her to fly away, back to the dullness of Queen Anne
Street, or even to the preachings of Lady Macleod, would she not do
so immediately? What business had she,--she asked herself,--to come
to such a house as that? Lady Glencora was very kind to her, but
frightened her even by her kindness. Moreover, she was aware that
Lady Glencora could not devote herself especially to any such guest
as she was. Lady Glencora must of course look after her duchesses,
and do pretty, as she called it, to her husband's important political
alliances.

And then she began to think about Lady Glencora herself. What a
strange, weird nature she was,--with her round blue eyes and wavy
hair, looking sometimes like a child and sometimes almost like an old
woman! And how she talked! What things she said, and what terrible
forebodings she uttered of stranger things that she meant to say! Why
had she at their first meeting made that allusion to the mode of her
own betrothal,--and then, checking herself for speaking of it so
soon, almost declare that she meant to speak more of it hereafter?
"She should never mention it to any one," said Alice to herself.
"If her lot in life has not satisfied her, there is so much the
more reason why she should not mention it." Then Alice protested to
herself that no father, no aunt, no Lady Midlothian should persuade
her into a marriage of which she feared the consequences. But Lady