see the more of my time
he steals the better it is for me."

"That's the evil you have got to cure."

"My cousin Plantagenet suggested--marriage."

"A very good thing too, I'm sure," said Alice; "only it depends
something on the sort of wife you get."

"You mean, of course, how much money she has."

"Not altogether."

"Looking at it from my cousin's point of view, I suppose that it is
the only important point. Who are there coming up this year,--in the
way of heiresses?"

"Upon my word I don't know. In the first place, how much money makes
an heiress?"

"For such a fellow as me, I suppose ten thousand pounds ought to do."

"That's not much," said Alice, who had exactly that amount of her
own.

"No--; perhaps that's too moderate. But the lower one went in the
money speculation, the greater would be the number to choose from,
and the better the chance of getting something decent in the woman
herself. I have something of my own,--not much you know; so with
the lady's ten thousand pounds we might be able to live,--in some
second-rate French town perhaps."

"But I don't see what you would gain by that."

"My people here would have got rid of me. That seems to be the great
thing. If you hear of any girl with about that sum, moderately
good-looking, not too young so that she might know something of the
world, decently born, and able to read and write, perhaps you will
bear me in mind."

"Yes, I will," said Alice, who was quite aware that he had made an
accurate picture of her own position. "When I meet such a one, I will
send for you at once."

"You know no such person now?"

"Well, no; not just at present."

"I declare I don't think he could do anything better," her cousin
said to her that night. Lady Glencora was now in the habit of having
Alice with her in what she called her dressing-room every evening,
and then they would sit till the small hours came upon them. Mr
Palliser always burnt the midnight oil and came to bed with the owls.
They would often talk of him and his prospects till Alice had perhaps
inspired his wife with more of interest in him and them than she had
before felt. And Alice had managed generally to drive her friend away
from those topics which were so dangerous,--those allusions to her
childlessness, and those hints that Burgo Fitzgerald was still in her
thoughts. And sometimes, of course, they had spoken of Alice's own
prospects, till she got into a way of telling her cousin free