letter."

"Say all what?"

"You know I confessed that I had been very bad in not coming to you
in London last year."

"I never thought of it for a moment."

"You did not care whether I came or not: was that it? But never mind.
Why should you have cared? But I cared. I told you in my letter that
I didn't come because I had so many things on hand. Of course that
was a fib."

"Everybody makes excuses of that kind," said Alice.

"But they don't make them to the very people of all others whom
they want to know and love. I was longing to come to you every day.
But I feared I could not come without speaking of him;--and I had
determined never to speak of him again." This she said in that
peculiar low voice which she assumed at times.

"Then why do it now, Lady Glencora?"

"I won't be called Lady Glencora. Call me Cora. I had a sister once,
older than I, and she used to call me Cora. If she had lived--. But
never mind that now. She didn't live. I'll tell you why I do it now.
Because I cannot help it. Besides, I've met him. I've been in the
same room with him, and have spoken to him. What's the good of any
such resolution now?"

"And you have met him?"

"Yes; he--Mr Palliser--knew all about it. When he talked of taking
me to the house, I whispered to him that I thought Burgo would be
there."

"Do not call him by his Christian name," said Alice, almost with a
shudder.

"Why not?--why not his Christian name? I did when I told my husband.
Or perhaps I said Burgo Fitzgerald."

"Well."

"And he bade me go. He said it didn't signify, and that I had better
learn to bear it. Bear it, indeed! If I am to meet him, and speak to
him, and look at him, surely I may mention his name." And then she
paused for an answer. "May I not?"

"What am I to say?" exclaimed Alice.

"Anything you please, that's not a falsehood. But I've got you here
because I don't think you will tell a falsehood. Oh, Alice, I do so
want to go right, and it is so hard!"

Hard, indeed, poor creature, for one so weighted as she had been, and
sent out into the world with so small advantages of previous training
or of present friendship! Alice began to feel now that she had been
enticed to Matching Priory because her cousin wanted a friend, and
of course she could not refuse to give the friendship that was asked
from her. She got up from her chair, and kneeling down at the other's
feet put up her face and kissed her.

"I knew you would be good to me