do you mean to say that it will be as beautiful to you when you come
back?"

"Yes;--I think it would," said Alice.

"Then you've no poetry in you. Now I'm made up of poetry." After that
they began to laugh at him and were very happy.

I think that Mr Grey was right in answering Alice's letter as he did;
but I think that Lady Macleod was also right in saying that Alice
should not have gone to Switzerland in company with George Vavasor. A
peculiar familiarity sprang up, which, had all its circumstances been
known to Mr Grey, would not have entirely satisfied him, even though
no word was said which might in itself have displeased him. During
the first weeks of their travelling no word was said which would
have displeased him; but at last, when the time for their return was
drawing nigh, when their happiness was nearly over, and that feeling
of melancholy was coming on them which always pervades the last hours
of any period that has been pleasant,--then words became softer than
they had been, and references were made to old days,--allusions which
never should have been permitted between them.

Alice had been very happy,--more happy perhaps in that she had been
a joint minister with Kate to her cousin George's idle fantasies,
than she would have been hurrying about with him as her slave. They
had tacitly agreed to spoil him with comforts; and girls are always
happier in spoiling some man than in being spoiled by men. And he had
taken it all well, doing his despotism pleasantly, exacting much,
but exacting nothing that was disagreeable. And he had been amusing
always, as Alice thought without any effort. But men and women, when
they show themselves at their best, seldom do so without an effort.
If the object be near the heart the effort will be pleasant to him
who makes it, and if it be made well, it will be hidden; but, not the
less, will the effort be there. George Vavasor had on the present
occasion done his very best to please his cousin.

They were sitting at Basle one evening in the balcony of the big
hotel which overlooks the Rhine. The balcony runs the length of the
house, and is open to all the company; but it is spacious, and little
parties can be formed there with perfect privacy. The swift broad
Rhine runs underneath, rushing through from the bridge which here
spans the river; and every now and then on summer evenings loud
shouts come up from strong swimmers in the water, who are glorying
in the swiftness o