f small matter to you, Miss Vavasor," said Mrs
Marsham, "as you will not probably have to see much of him."

"Of the very smallest moment," said Alice. "He did annoy me once, but
will never, I dare say, have an opportunity of doing so again."

"I don't know what the annoyance may have been."

"Of course you don't, Mrs Marsham."

"But I shouldn't have thought it likely that a person so fully
employed as Mr Bott, and employed, too, on matters of such vast
importance, would have gone out of his way to annoy a young lady whom
he chanced to meet for a day or two in a country-house."

"I don't think that Alice means that he attempted to flirt with her,"
said Lady Glencora, laughing. "Fancy Mr Bott's flirtation!"

"Perhaps he did not attempt," said Mrs Marsham; and the words, the
tone, and the innuendo together were more than Alice was able to bear
with equanimity.

"Glencora," said she, rising from her chair, "I think I'll leave
you alone with Mrs Marsham. I'm not disposed to discuss Mr Bott's
character, and certainly not to hear his name mentioned in
disagreeable connection with my own."

But Lady Glencora would not let her go. "Nonsense, Alice," she said.
"If you and I can't fight our little battles against Mr Bott and Mrs
Marsham without running away, it is odd. There is a warfare in which
they who run away never live to fight another day."

"I hope, Glencora, you do not count me as your enemy?" said Mrs
Marsham, drawing herself up.

"But I shall,--certainly, if you attack Alice. Love me, love my dog.
I beg your pardon, Alice; but what I meant was this, Mrs Marsham;
Love me, love the best friend I have in the world."

"I did not mean to offend Miss Vavasor," said Mrs Marsham, looking at
her very grimly. Alice merely bowed her head. She had been offended,
and she would not deny it. After that, Mrs Marsham took herself off,
saying that she would be back to dinner. She was angry, but not
unhappy. She thought that she could put down Miss Vavasor, and
she was prepared to bear a good deal from Lady Glencora--for Mr
Palliser's sake, as she said to herself, with some attempt at a
sentimental remembrance of her old friend.

"She's a nasty old cat," said Lady Glencora, as soon as the door was
closed; and she said these words with so droll a voice, with such a
childlike shaking of her head, with so much comedy in her grimace,
that Alice could not but laugh. "She is," said Lady Glencora. "I know
her, and you'll have to