id Lady Midlothian; "very glad." But still Alice did not speak.
"Your aunt, Lady Macleod, is one of my oldest friends, and I have
heard her speak of you very often."

"And Lady Macleod has often spoken to me of your ladyship," said
Alice.

"Then we know each other's names," said the Countess; "and it will
be well that we should be acquainted with each other's persons. I am
becoming an old woman, and if I did not learn to know you now, or
very shortly, I might never do so."

Alice could not help thinking that even under those circumstances
neither might have had, so far as that was concerned, much cause of
sorrow, but she did not say so. She was thinking altogether of Lady
Midlothian's letter to her, and trying to calculate whether or no
it would be well for her to rush away at once to the subject. That
Lady Midlothian would mention the letter, Alice felt well assured;
and when could it be better mentioned than now, in Glencora's
presence,--when no other person was near them to listen to her? "You
are very kind," said Alice.

"I would wish to be so," said Lady Midlothian. "Blood is thicker
than water, my dear; and I know no earthly ties that can bind people
together if those of family connection will not do so. Your mother,
when she and I were young, was my dearest friend."

"I never knew my mother," said Alice,--feeling, however, as she
spoke, that the strength of her resistance to the old woman was
beginning to give way.

"No, my dear, you never did; and that is to my thinking another
reason why they who loved her should love you. But Lady Macleod is
your nearest relative,--on your mother's side, I mean,--and she has
done her duty by you well."

"Indeed she has, Lady Midlothian."

"She has, and others, therefore, have been the less called upon to
interfere. I only say this, my dear, in my own vindication,--feeling,
perhaps, that my conduct needs some excuse."

"I'm sure Alice does not think that," said Lady Glencora.

"It is what I think rather than what Alice thinks that concerns my
own shortcomings," said Lady Midlothian, with a smile which was
intended to be pleasant. "But I have wished to make up for former
lost opportunities." Alice knew that she was about to refer to her
letter, and trembled. "I am very anxious now to be reckoned one of
Alice Vavasor's friends, if she will allow me to become so."

"I can only be too proud,--if--"

"If what, my dear?" said the old lady. I believe that she meant to