But Alice had gone away, and therefore the money was due to Lady Midlothian rather than to her.

The saving, however, was postponed whenever Alice would consent to visit Cheltenham; and a bedroom was secured for her which did not look out over the stables.
Accommodation was also found for her maid much better than that provided for Lady Macleod's own maid.

She was a hospitable, good old woman, painfully struggling to do the best she could in the world.

It was a pity that she was such a bore, a pity that she was so hard to cabmen and others, a pity that she suspected all tradesmen, servants, and people generally of a rank of life inferior to her own, a pity that she was disposed to condemn for ever and ever so many of her own rank because they played cards on week days, and did not go to church on Sundays,--and a pity, as I think above all, that while she was so suspicious of the poor she was so lenient to the vices of earls, earl's sons, and such like.
Alice, having fully considered the matter, had thought it most prudent to tell Lady Macleod by letter what she had done in regard to Mr Grey.

There had been many objections to the writing of such a letter, but there appeared to be stronger objection to that telling it face to face which would have been forced upon her had she not written.